Saturday, April 30, 2016

An Old Photograph of a Quiet Street in Paxtang Found in a Book

A photograph laid in a book with the feeling of a hand
I have forgotten      the reason         pages 188-89
this book             instead of that book

no cars      no people     October afternoon

road that passes a church centuries old
squat      rough stones    quietly proud
whose angry congregants    massacred

you can just glimpse the proud historic sign

the last of the Susquehannocks
fourteen elderly       under State protection
what remained of the twenty-two

who were old people     making brooms
locked in a workhouse    pitifully
    kept in Conestoga town

They called it reprisal    for something
that happened elsewhere     to murder
old mothers fathers     no children left

the Paxton Boys

a quiet street in  Paxtang

you sense this street
is exactly what they wanted

Peshtank

who cares   who will feel you    later
No words         on the back
only processing notes       a machine

spoke in blue ink      in diagonals

no possession

no one there         the trees in full throes of color

the unseen church

no possessions

the way the trees seem to own themselves

the one redeeming note of darkness
                                                            here




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