You notice when the branch dips and bobs  

before seeing the bird, hear a song landed there
in the bush, know a thing lives, yet still search.
We’ll accustom ourselves to footsteps in halls,

assured everyone is pursuing purpose just there
around the corner from us, just as we have done.
We will swear there was breathing on the line

before the soft click, then the hum of a nothing,
wondering out the remainder of that long day
what it might could have been: not who. What.   

For Sale, Sitting in Yellow Chairs

I’m waiting for the realtor to show. Again.
How many times is this? I’m resting in a chair
I seldom notice now. One of the two yellow
ones you wanted so much, off-yellow now,
but not as worn they might have been, yes?

I’ve not studied these rooms much from this
perspective as of late. In fact, I’ve not slept
in this house in over a year. I can’t help but notice
how bookended I feel by things nearly forgotten.
What should happen with these remainders?
It’s so cliché, reminiscing on objects like these,
the realtor on the way, the once tight cocoon
of belongings in shadowy fade. The only things
remaining being heavily storied, at least enough
to prevent me from setting them outside
where things magically vanish overnight.

I’ve tossed so much already. But what’s left
I’d worry whoever ended up with would mistake
their stories, or worse, never wonder what hands
held each thing, what conversations belonged
to each item, would lack the curiosity, why
it all ended up on roadside to begin with.

That’s the real story, in the end, isn’t it? Not
what a thing is, but how it got where it ends up.                                 

I’ve benefited in mind and body from sitting practice and contemplative walking, along with incorporating throat singing / chanting into my meditation. I’m in the tenth month of a personal poem-a-day journey, which feels often like a pilgrimage of the mind and word. Experiencing poetry is the experience of prayer, a consideration of the mysterious at the atomic and universal level, an attempt to step into the mind of everything. 

Larry D. Thacker’s poetry can be found or is forthcoming in over a hundred publications including The Still Journal, Poetry South, Tower Poetry Society, Spillway, The Southern Poetry Anthology, and Appalachian Heritage. His books include Mountain Mysteries: The Mystic Traditions of Appalachia and the poetry books, Voice Hunting and Memory Train, as well as the forthcoming, Drifting in Awe.