Edges of Roads
Trent Busch
Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest 2016 (view all the winners)
First Prize, Margaret Reid, Traditional Verse
Of all country things, I suppose
I know best the edges of roads,
not berms where grass grows down to sides
of ditches, like on interstates,
or even where animals feed
at dusk, where cans congregate with
wrappers and the small dead are bounced
off below the cruising vultures.
I mean the trails behind the line
of woods and brush several yards off
where whatever watches can see
all that passes, not seen itself.
Hunters will know the place I mean
where on wet fall days they can move
silently, far enough from home,
but not in so deep they can get lost.
Lovers know it best, slipping off
on weekday afternoons or weekend
nights, pushing back convertible
tops, reaching for fragments of sky.
Seeing and not being seen are what
I want to say, not in hiding
but in league with fringes, knowing
what roads don't know of things that stay,
the way a child, who isn't lost, kneels
out of sight, urging with a straw
a beetle along, while through the town
anxious voices cry out his name.
Mr. Busch writes: "The production crew and cast for 'Edges of Roads' are made of my family: my wife, my daughter, my son-in-law, and my granddaughter, who for the most part directed, shot, and edited the video."
