Two Poems
by John Brantingham
October Gratitude
This morning, I come down
into the basement to read,
my whole underground world
humming with the space heater
and the dehumidifier.
I listen to my wife and the dog
walking about in their daily necessary tasks.
I wasn’t really paying attention
until just now when Ann paused
in her humming to let Lizzy know
that she is a good dog,
and Lizzy’s nails click
with her dance of joy.
We’re just on the edge of autumn,
and I am warm enough here.
I have enough light to read
and anyway this is a friend’s
newest poetry collection,
and it is so well written,
and I can hear his voice reading these poems
in the cavern of my mind.
Mid Autumn Day near the River
The windows of the factory
where they used to build couches
down by the river were broken
by kids years ago.
Now the windows
of the duplexes nearby
have been too.
People keep moving away
from this town
from the inside out.
Most of us left
inhabit the perimeter.
Woodchucks have taken
over the fields, and the deer
clip the weeds.
Sometimes I imagine
the sounds of raven claws
clicking through upstairs rooms,
the way it would sound from downstairs,
the way it would sound
in winter during a break in a storm.
I have seen children
slipping in through those windows
in the evening and out
in the dark early morning.
John Brantingham is currently and always thinking about radical wonder. He is a New York State Council on the Arts Grant Recipient for 2024, and he was Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks’ first poet laureate. His work has been in hundreds of magazines and The Best Small Fictions 2016 and 2022. He has twenty-two books of poetry, nonfiction, and fiction.