The Hard Hours, by Thomas R. Moore

The Return of the Prodigal Son, by Rembrandt van Rijn (Netherlands) c. 1661–1669.

The Hard Hours

maybe you
lose a twenty-dollar bill
on the street
or an earring
through a crack
in the floorboards
maybe you lose
your sweetheart
or your favorite sweatshirt
or your son

where do you
look what
do you do
about loss
it is futile
to kneel
in the mud
praying
you find only
a few birch twigs
cold soiled knees
on your jeans
it is futile
to stand
by the road
in the hard hours
and raise your arms
howling like a wound
into the night

in Rembrandt’s
Return of the Prodigal Son
the father welcomes
the lost son
bends tenderly
to caress his back
the elder son
seething
in the shadows

​Thomas R. Moore

​Thomas R. Moore has published three books of poems: The Bolt-Cutters (2010), Chet Sawing (2012), and Saving Nails (2016). His work is represented in more than thirty literary journals and has been broadcast on Writer’s Almanac and American Life in Poetry. His poem, “How We Built Our House,” won a Pushcart Prize and is included in the 2018 Best of the Small Presses Anthology. He currently serves as Poet Laureate for Belfast, Maine.