The Enchanted Distance, by Frederick Wilbur

Twyford James Farm, by Frederick Wilbur (USA). Contemporary.

​
The Enchanted Distance
 
Our rural curve is dabbed in strokes
of tawny broom sedge, the sway
of a left-handed artist and late
fading flowers spend their earnest
seed as anxious mothers send
their little ones off to the unknown.
 
The barn-over-the-hill is slipped
like a story book of pop-ups
between this near surety underfoot
and the surrender-brown mountains
                        in autumn’s undress.
 
Who can blame the clouds for their
ephemeral dalliance, their witness?
 
The barn peeks from the other side,
its tin hat a certain give away.
We can only guess its harvest
as the field is uncut, unbailed,
like the brain’s lofts and stalls,
                        bins and troughs.
 
It is not the picturesque ruin
we might paint or romance to friends,
but the artist has placed it
at an enchanted distance.
 
Our eyes are made to trudge the curve,
the mind to imagine its field-stone foundation,
its doors, latched and private,
the bright quilt hanging onto aging boards.
 
Who can say the ordinary is not
part of an honourable survival?

Frederick Wilbur

Frederick Wilbur’s forth book is a poetry collection, As Pus Floats the Splinter Out. His work has appeared in many print and on-line literary reviews including Shenandoah, The Atlanta Review, the Comstock Review, The Dalhousie Review, Rise Up Review and Mojave River Review. He was awarded the Stephen Meats Award by Midwest Quarterly (2017).