Snowfall
In Play
French Broad
Place
A painting, The Homecoming, hangs
in my bedroom, reminds me
of childhood home.
Featured, old frame house,
rustic, weathered wood,
wraparound porch.
The yard, draped
in pristine snow.
Solitary footprints
break the surface,
angle to side door
where family knows
to enter.
You never saw where I
grew up. Funny, then,
I imagine the footprints
yours, see you settle
near hissing woodstove.
Together, we forget
there is winter all
around.
Shorter days slide their cards
off the table, scan them
close to the chest;
the seasons are in play.
Summer no longer lounges
in bright colors, sipping
icy drinks, laughing.
Now she’s in long sleeves,
complaining daylight’s
gone anemic.
Aloof sun loiters nearer
the horizon, holds
herself distant from
the crowd, but just
you wait for her
catwalk come
spring.
Morning sun flashes
off murmuring ripples,
liquid skin of the
Cherokee’s Long Man,
running against
expectation, north
not south. This river,
wanderer, slipping
between gentle mountains,
meandering
through valleys,
talking, always talking
of all it has
seen.
Long line of dirt farmers
brought me here. Land
they scraped for,
bargained for, added to,
held. Soybeans failed
in sandy soil. But tobacco,
its blooms, suckers,
gum that becomes a second
skin, was the ticket
for just getting by. Infinite
cycle, spring to plant, summer
to sweat, fall to sell, winter
to sit by the stove, to wait,
to dream of the crop
to end all crops, of leaves
cured golden and perfect.
Land now sprouting
mansions and sidewalks,
strip malls, restaurants.
No trace of plowed fields,
of arrowheads, of dinner
bells and neighbors come
to help harvest.
Gray concrete. Green cash,
newcomers’ pockets ripe
with it. And our lot?
What’s left of us, moved
to other places, just
getting by.
Peggy Hammond grew up in Apex, North Carolina, back when it was a small town surrounded by farms. She earned her MA in English Literature from North Carolina State University and taught a variety of college English courses for many years. Her poetry has been nominated for Best of the Net and appears in several national and international publications including Rogue Agent, Two Thirds North, Cordella,Skylight 47, Peeking Cat, The Comstock Review, Waterwheel Review, Jabberwock Review, Adelaide Literary Magazine, Pangyrus, West Trade Review, Fragmented Voices, For Women Who Roar, and others. Her full-length play A Little Bit of Destiny was produced by OdysseyStage Theatre in Durham, North Carolina. She lives in her home state with her husband, who is very nearly perfect, and their spoiled cat, a mischievous girl who makes them laugh every day.
