Andrew Weatherly lives in Asheville, North Carolina where he hears inspiration from dying trees, Hawaiian shirts, fires, and other poets. He is blessed to teach kids to think for themselves, dance in the streets, and slip off to pilgrimages to sacred mountains.
He’s been published in Belle Reve, Axe Factory, Former People, Danse Macabre, Visitant, Cordite, BlazeVox, the Literary Nest, Commonline Journal, and Crack the Spine. Look for more of his poetry upcoming in ClockwiseCat and Delta Poetry.
Galactic Bread Crumbs
He asked, “In what direction do the dead fly off the earth?”
Perhaps it is not they who fly
but stay gently still in space and time
no longer expanding
as earth rotates, spins around the sun
the solar system gaining speed
moving on in the galaxy’s arm
in twirling motion out from some
hypothetical Big Bang center
and the souls left behind
like a trail of crumbs in the forest
planetary refuse remaining
leaving a trail of dead where we have been
but not to return
taking with us only earthly atoms
while their spirits set free
in the void
left behind
telling tails
Quaker Graveyard
simple gray stones
three inches above ground
several set at six
one stone nine inches above the earth: such Pride
tiny rocky islands surrounded by succulent jade grass
Four hundred souls buried here
so like my living Quaker parents
marking days in pages read and pondered
words thoughts feelings of lives
as simple as ink
black on a white page
As I left home to visit my parents
I considered how to leave my home
so the cat wouldn’t tip it over. Then
truck packed, eight hours to drive—and suddenly
dozens of poetry books flipped, plopped
off end table, the cat dozed, the phone ringing!?!?
Tonight exhaustion driven
still blacktop caffeinated
listening to storm gently roiling
frogs laugh in koi pond out back
my headboard:
hundreds of books stacked on sides
beside bed full shelves many upright
plenty angled, sliding away like asphalt
spilling over floor
no need for a cat to tip them over
just an aging man and woman
measuring wealth
by words on pages of Wordsworth,
thoughts on the Quaker circulars,
feelings of Danticat, Churchill, Atwood
rarely rising more than three inches above another
