Two Poems

THE FOG AND THE SWIFTS

by Roy Meador

For Wayne Willer

The fog has worn

the edges off

everything.

It is too late

for the trees

pressed flat

as if between

two sheets

of waxed paper,

their green grayed.

Only the swifts

are beyond

the crush

of this moment.

I can hear them

working at the borders. I can see them

tracing out a geometry only they understand.

This morning

when one mystery

crosses the expanse of another

I follow my usual steps

foot after foot

to work.

ROY MEADOR is a poet and retired college librarian and associate professor of English. He and his wife, Donna, live in Ankeny, Iowa.

BLANK PAGES

by George Fillingham

In Sri Lanka somewhere is a strip

Of ground about 12 feet long, a pacing length,

A track of sand and dust, separated,

Marked off for meditation by Buddhist monks

Because tradition has it that this dirt path

Retains the footprints of the Buddha himself.

What could we possibly learn from footprints?

Perhaps the earth, like any blank sheet,

Records the essence of the printing foot.

Does Jerusalem remember Jesus? Or Job? Isaiah? David? Solomon?

I remember walking German forests;

Do those pine needled forest floors Remember me?

Or should the earth shed Me as lakes shed passing geese?

GEORGE FILLINGHAM is a poet, laborer, and former writing instructor living in Hopkinsville, Kentucky.