the turkeys

when I was a boy
and my mother walked with me
to school
I'd go ahead
and stand and wait
beside some turkeys
penned-in
beside a brook
in a stand of trees

and there I'd listen
to the turkey-talk,
their glottal glug and guttural gobble,

but then one morning
those turkeys were gone
and part of the fence was down

and there in the gloam
it occurred to me
that the trees
were furious
for they clacked
their branches
and rustled
their leaves
and tossed
their heads
and waved
their arms
and threw
their twigs into the air
and made great moans

and so I said
that the wind
was made by the trees
and that was how
they spoke to us and
then
my mother
told me how it was
that I was
wrong

______
gw2010