The Hound
A hound’s in the woods tonight.
I can hear him but I see only eyes,
two glasses flashing in two milky skies.
The hound wakes the locals. His bark’s
an echo of timber and water and
his mission is as clear as the stars
now in full roll.
O like an everglades’ burn
the hound illuminates, he flushes out
the rabid packs and sends them down
to lower parts where no treelines
can be found, much less traced.
Tell the hound I’m with him.
Tell the hound I know his name
but won’t spill it because like him
I wait for early bright and something clear.
Then the hound will watch the cockcrow’s
indigo turn red and later a color of day
when we’ll both sleep till street
lights
torch again.
L. Ward Abel
L. Ward Abel, poet, composer,
teacher, retired lawyer, lives in rural Georgia, has been published hundreds of times in
print and online, including Snow Jewel, The Reader, Yale Anglers' Journal,
Versal, Words for the Wild, After the Pause, Istanbul Review, others, and
is the author of one full collection and eleven chapbooks
of poetry, including Jonesing For Byzantium (UKA Press,
2006), American Bruise (Parallel Press, 2012), Little
Town gods (Folded Word Press, 2016), A Jerusalem of Ponds (erbacce-Press, 2016), Digby
Roundabout (Kelsay Books, 2017), and The Rainflock Sings Again (Unsolicited
Press, 2019).
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Poetry