Sometimes the drops of air laugh at our impudent chuckle

and gather themselves into a breath. Sometimes

 

when the robin stares too long at the kitchen window,

we become her careless dream. Sometimes

 

the patches of nothing between the rain

know something, too, of waiting. Sometimes

 

I pinch myself asleep long enough to awaken again

to the resurrection of your scent. Sometimes

 

the sucking sound when pulling boots up from the mud 
is how I hear your leaving. Sometimes

the one goose not in formation with the others, 
heading where life goes are my thoughts without you. Sometimes

like old leaves pasted back on the living tree 
is the sound of my cracked voice next to your song. Sometimes

 
like a shower in the lobby with the door open 
is our talk. Sometimes

 

in the wordless poetry, alone,

is our silence.

 

The folklore of the Scottish highland moors is extensive and, frankly, creepy as hell. This is a poem that narrates some of that creepiness. Enjoy…or whatever one does with this kind of poetry!

 

From marsh and hill through woodland, still,

arose the lithe-limb’d people.

Their frozen stare could nearly kill

e’en those under God’s steeple.

* * *

For many years they haunted men

and frightened little children.

They came at night from eerie dens

to poison, scare or steal them.

* * *

Hunted down with bow and gun

till all were tired and hopeless,

till one cold day, they came upon

a creature in death’s caress.

* * *

So pale and wan, it lay atop

a thicket, robed in grasses;

it’s bluish skin, stout hearts could stop

black eyes, like coal-molasses.

* * *

The men bent down to prod and stare,

its spindly shanks to…