Memory

I was telling my students about Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five and its main character, Billy Pilgrim, who has come "unstuck in time," when I mentioned that we all do that sometimes, we all time travel in our heads. Don't we? They looked at me as though the men in white coats would arrive shortly. Oh, well.

My brother's white and brown dog
runs up the hill path ahead of me.
Our cows in the muddy barnyard--
looking patient and troubled
as Old Testament prophets.

Juncoes in the spent briers--
their black heads like monks' cowls.
November's one ripe blackberry
holding itself out to me
like an offering.