Two Poems — Peatsmoke

Silence

It is in the thick of calamity that one gets hardened to the truth--in other words, to silence.
Albert Camus

Most of my father’s hearing was lost to a war he’s still
fighting, and the rest he surrendered to indefensible time.
It’s a silent world, one where he talks but can’t hear,
one where all we do is listen to him without speaking,
like his voice is the period at the end of an essay.

All the black and white photos of my childhood, the
ones where all of us kids are singing around a country
kitchen table playing our little instruments, my father
is in the periphery of the frame, harboring every word
while hesitant to be a part of that landscape.

When we visit now he shuffles over to that same table
in his kitchen to get a visual clue of what song we--
my brother and I, old men now ourselves--are singing,
and he starts humming. There are notes in silence, you
know, placeholders for what can never be spoken, or heard.

Yes, music has been a part of my life. I hear songs where
others hear only the white flag of enemies who look like us
singing harmony with the poverty in our bones. I know my
father can’t hear these songs, but he reads the lyrics.
And he hums. And sometimes he remembers the words.

Watering a dead willow and other necessary chores

After the ice storm I gathered up all the broken pieces
of willow and shoved them hard into the backyard because
someone said that’s what you do, hoping they would grow
into a wall against the apartments the neighbor has been
threatening to build. A few trees prospered and another one
started out good but then went south.
The thing is, I haven’t stopped watering it.

I already know counselors would have a field day
with this one: Every time I water the others I
make sure to nurture that withered stick too.
If my tree were a dead child, I can hear them say, the
table setting you keep pristine or the child’s bedroom
you can’t bear to visit would be just some sort of aberrance,
a desperate belief that sometimes we have to generate
our own hope, sometimes we have to manufacture

a dream when there’s not one in front of us to grab.
I’m sure they even have a label for people like me.
Those counselors would say it’s a measure to keep me
believing that things will get better, something to
keep me believing the neighbors won’t build those
apartments after all, keep me believing a lost child will
someday come home.

about the author

Casey Killingsworth has work in The American Journal of Poetry, Two Thirds North, and other journals. He has two books of poems, A Handbook for Water (Cranberry Press 1995) and A nest blew down (Kelsay Books 2021). Casey has a Master’s degree from Reed College.

about the artist

Danielle Sung is a junior at Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire. In her spare time, she enjoys creating art, visiting exhibits around the world, studying art history and anthropology. Sung has won recognitions in several art competitions, including winning Gold Medals in the National Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, being selected as the American Vision and Voices Nominee, and the winner of the 2019 Congressional Art Competition. Sung is currently preparing to major in art with a focus on portraiture and installations.