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Working: Vol. 4, No. 4 - Issue 16 Winter 2025

The Lost Quiet​

Issue 16
For years, we walked
among the quiet,
where corn rows
met the trees.
 
I hopped over ruts
left from spring;
he stepped with care,
beside the mud,
curled, hardened.
 
It was fall now;
the last leaves clung to branches,
waiting for another frost.
 
The night before, I’d read
of what was coming,
prepared a final visit,
hoping we’d share the moment--
a preemptive mourning.
 
I did not know if he’d read of
the imminent dissolution of our peace.
 
I arrived earlier than usual;
shadows still stretched
into the field,
slipped into their familiar place,
and settled into position.
 
I waited.

Jay Kvarnstrom is the Department Head of English at a charter school in Western Massachusetts. He lives in Granby, Connecticut, where he writes poetry that explores the psychological experience of landscape and the tension between social structures and personal history. He is currently working on his first manuscript.

READ THE FULL PIECE IN ISSUE 16
Copyright © 2025 Empyrean Literary Magazine, L.L.C.
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