Court House

One autumn morning

I saw the Court House

was up before dawn,

with her forehead turned east

toward the hill

and the sky beyond,

waiting for the sun

to raise her brow

above the ridge

and come tripping over

on silent feet

to clothe her

in the golden sheath

she wears for sunrise.

Photo: Bron Miller

The Butler Pennsylvania Poems




Butler Aubade


One spring morning
Our eager sun burst in on us
And came bounding down
The full length of Pearl Street,
But suddenly pulled up short
Behind three young birch trees,
Quivering—
Then passed through, gently,
In tinkling fragments of green.

The Butler Pennsylvania Poems

Setting Foot

When I was a boy my compass said:
Main Street points North
where parades come from
marching up at the Court House,
and Brady Street points West
along the route the circus takes
from the train yard to the fairgrounds.

Where those lines crossed
my world opened up
and expanded to the edge of town
and the woods beyond,
coordinates between which
I staked out and claimed
Eden as my own,
lived in it, that time-free realm,
but then, growing self-reliant, left—
forgetting what I had
until some unquenchable yearning
drew me back
to where those lines crossed.

And I returned to the Eden that once was,
knowing I could never find it again,
yet I would live within its bounds
with the boy in me
who had known and seen.
Now I could hope and believe
and wait for the gate to open
to an Eden grander yet
than the one I once possessed
in those guileless boyhood days
of that first beguiling quest.

Cities have long been an object of poetic contemplation. This poetry about a small Western Pennsylvania town attempts to reawaken the past and infuse meaning and newness into seemingly insignificant happenings. It expresses awe at what is thought to be trivial, its verse slows down the reader to express wonder at the commonplace. It uses plain language that looks beneath the sensual surface of the events of everyday life for the hidden, mysterious component that reveals the beauty of life's experience.These poems are more than a nostalgic recounting of memories and occurrences. They have to do with the essence of reality and as such they are insights into the way people might see things and the way they live in small towns across the nation.