Sample Poems by J.E. Pitts
Young Hawks
Objects in mirror are closer than they appear
while driving down the turnoffs to places with names
like Pleasant Hill and Locust Grove right before dark.
Young hawks fly in a circle above the car.
They are tracking some animal
moving through the tall grass.
Young hawks can swoop down suddenly
when they grow bored.
They do grow bored–it becomes old hat
to track your eventual prey across a field.
It’s the same in war when the targets are lined up
and the planes fly in and bomb them to smithereens.
The answer nags--
The animal on the ground, looking for a thicket.
Young hawks, waiting on the right moment.
A driver in a car, watching
the grass move in the mirror.
All of us trying not to think of
all the things, just ahead,
that lie in wait.
In the Amish Orchard
Yes, you are the one–
sick one, warped one,
botched little red one,
with a house for a worm
in a sunken brown valley.
You will be spared the grocers spite
and the farmer’s curse
that calls you blight.
You will be a baseball
for a short time in our field
beyond the whispers of the women
who skitter about with
aprons loaded down
that hint of
horribly bulging pies.
In the Field
The orb, that summer sun,
swings over us like a
sickle shaving young wheat.
Bringing out the rows,
going down the line,
coming back to double-check.
Snapping and pulling,
checking for spots,
taking the good,
the manageable,
leaving the seconds and the poor.
Filling the baskets and buckets to
go into the pantry for winter,
gearing up for the time
when it will all go bad.
Garden of Birds
Walking in the garden,
I hear the birds.
They sit in the trees.
They hunch on the branches and
chirp over to this spot.
The moon is so big and so yellow,
so bright, like a negative sun.
It is early evening,
but the birds think it is daytime.
It will not always be this way.
These birds cannot always
chirp to the moon–
the moon also has to travel,
and it gets smaller as it goes.
The birds hunch on the branches and
chirp over to this spot.
They only stop when the
wind barrels up the hill and
sets loose the tinkling chimes.