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.
 
Rows of corn folded into aisles,
sun-dried stalks became shelves,
behind me, the trees
hardened into walls.
The sky above--
fluorescent.
 
I noticed him from a distance,
and the field, temporarily restored.
 
I wondered if he also
came to say goodbye,
to reminisce through walks
we’d had among the quiet.
 
His pace was slower now,
shoulders hunched,
his gaze
extended beyond.
 
For a time,
silence held the peace
where corn rows met the trees.

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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.

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