1 poem

Nancy cherry

Election Day

—November 5, 2024

I

Autumn light behind the fog casts a pale gray
over these hills—mounded blankets of grass
the color of straw. They stand out against
the rouge and mustard of leaves that lace
the pepper trees. They darken against the sky
while the bark appears whiter than last time
I looked. The gardeners, usually here early on
Tuesday mornings arrive late. Their equipment
idles in the silence. This stillness does not offer
calm, but an apprehension as if the day holds
its breath. But what could worry the trees?

II

Earlier, I heard the wild turkeys—their gobble
and scratch below my windows where rosemary
and redbud wait for rain. Now, even the birds
pass in silence. The cars are silent. The slant
of light touching everything waits. Lichen wait.
A titmouse pecks on a branch. Grass waits. Then
the birds disappear as a new season creeps in
with a chill. Even my cat tucks her paws in.
It takes very little time for the view to change—
passage of the moon, spin of the earth, a sleight
wind from the sea.

III

Up the hill, turkeys meander en masse stretching
their gray necks with a strange grace and a ruffle
of tail feathers. They are not pretty, but solemnly
gather like councilmen conferring in brown robes.
They cluck, banter, and move on. And I have seen
the deer passing above—new families with their
hope of sweet grass—spotted fawns at the heels
of their mothers, and young bucks already knobby
with the antlers to come. I can smell the cut grass
blowing in as the gardeners rev their mowers,
the ruckus fading as they pass. Little groups sit
outside my window—clumps of leave, cars in
the lot, branches crisscrossing the view—and I
wonder where the people are. There must be
parents and children, workers and the retired,
veterans, the newly wed, the recently single,
relationships at the beginning, couples still
holding hands behind the walls of wood
and glass—maybe hundreds out of sight.
It is still early. Maybe they are getting ready.
Maybe they are on their way.