Laura Newbern

 

 

Red Planet

 

Rodney says he might write a poem about hatred,

so much of it now, free and loose in the world.

I drop him off in the drive, in the blue-green light

of his hotel. It isn’t late. But it is dark, night,

seamless. Middle-October. And cold: a front

came in today and pressed down upon us. At home

I stop to stare out the back window, straight out

at the star, the one that is toned red and low

on the horizon, in line with the stout white column

of the back porch. Old world, old house and its

slight grace, gleaming back at the sky and its

blood beacon. How many times, evenings. autumns,

have I walked past this scene? Mars, racing

unto its opposition, when Earth will fly

between it and the sun. While a man, soft-spoken,

works on a poem in a room at the north end of town.

 

 

 

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