Perimeter Poems

Cover image © Brian Michael Barbeito

North, east, south and west of a familiar patch of country — hawks, lakes, archways and ground that still feels feral.

Prose and photographs by Brian Michael Barbeito

By the scarecrow sometimes lives a hawk, and the hawk watches the grounds. I looked up once and the hawk was close but I hadn’t seen it soon enough and missed getting a picture as it then flew away. In any event, south holds a strange grounds and some lakes. Wildflowers are near, and some men by the lake once caught many Pike fish from one of the waters and I was surprised not knowing they were there but why wouldn’t they be there?- I supposed after,- the men and the fish.

At that lake there are old houses from generations ago but they are more like little kind of broke down cottages. But also there are impossibly rich homes, homes that look to me more like small castles. And in the end the people aren’t better or worse but different. And how different from one another they are! Sometimes I can’t think of such a difference more pronounced. Both have good qualities and both also have things that aren’t so good. That’s the way it goes I suppose, with everything or nearly everything. Duality. Two sides.

Never eat shredded wheat. Or, never eat sour watermelon. That’s how I was taught to remember the four directions. North East South West. And the Great Lakes were HOMES. Huron. Ontario. Michigan. Erie. Superior. Anyhow, those things are interesting. Like, I once knew a person that was from the Caspian Sea, a woman with long flowing balayage hair that seemed to have golden sparkles. So I looked it up and it said some people say it’s a sea and some a lake. Strange. Always there is lots to learn…

East are some wild lands. A gravel road leading to secluded marshlands and homes. I never knew it was there. Parking on a strange road to take pictures of the flora and fauna I felt there the wildest energy, unabridged, unencumbered. And the trees and the air around them felt oddly frightening or foreboding as if humans weren’t supposed to be there. Or, put it this way,- as if it wasn’t so much that humans weren’t supposed to be there but that humans simply weren’t there and there was therefore no vibrational energy or print of anything human. Like the world before or after humans. I thought,- this is absolutely feral this area. Anything could be here. It is not managed by a town or warden or county or anything. This is a place wholly unto its own. An explorer, I wasn’t much of one that day and felt happy to get out of there. I felt odd about that atmosphere.

North is north. Perhaps in many places north means more or less similar things in a way. Eventually just fields. And a tract. And some little ponds. I’d wished I knew more farmers. Or at least one or two. Because you can tell that there are just worlds waiting way off the one lane roads. I mean, you can really tell. Intuit. Barns on concrete forms. What are the little paths and passageways? Must be animals and little stands of trees. Perhaps there are more structures and beyond see the green lands,- forests fine and fantastic. Must be dens and deer, birch and maybe sometimes a little river or something with stones and mysterious trees waiting near the sides. I don’t know. It seems like those things are there. Makes you use your imagination anyway. To think some birds for instance must live out their whole lives without anyone seeing them. Maybe just a painter or poet should be allowed a glance, universe? What do you say? Doesn’t really look like a yes. Seems so far like a no.

West. West isn’t bad. There is a concrete structure up from an old church and cemetery. It’s an archway. Sometimes a blackbird sits near there or even atop. But there is nothing beyond. I wonder what was there. I’m no historian or anything. It goes a long way back. Once I saw a sign not far from there that read,- This Land Is Not For Sale. That meant if you think about the content and context or something…that some developers must have been approaching someone somehow. Think about it. It would be rare to just put up a sign like that out of the blue. West. Surely that bird knows more about all the things that are there. The reeds. The frogs if there are frogs. The deer that maybe pass through. The ghosts of the past. Time. Spirits from the graveyard! Unsettled. Restless. Lost souls! For some reason failing to make passageway to the next worlds. But the bird isn’t talking. Not that way anyhow. The bird is more spiritual, living instinctually and energetically and as if from another dimension, right? West.

So on the perimeter of things, there are ponds and lakes, men looking for fish, plus some areas that exist which exemplify wildness. Also, strange concrete archways with birds. Old little houses and new humungous houses. I would choose a regular house. Structurally sound, brick, but not a small thing lacking, and not a gauche showy mansion either! I’d just go into a town sometimes to get supplies. And maybe walk around to see and photograph some trees and flowers. Sleep the afternoons away. Forget about what they call life, the world, ambition, or being included in their games, schemes, and dramas. At night I’d open the window a little bit and listen to the wind. Finally I’d fall to sleep again. I’d like to dream then I was an angel, an angel flying how and whenever, wherever, I wanted.

But, even as an angel invisible and agile and emancipated from gravity and third dimensional times, allowed then to go to other planets fantastic or future areas and past time pyramids, to astral waterfalls and unimaginable wild wonderlands of any sort, I’d probably also stay close. Ya, I’d likely just fly a bit over the pastoral summer fields, worlds bright and simple and honest in the day. And at night I’d also go around those fields to see what was what. Moon. Stars. Sometimes rains. And maybe rest or even sleep. Hey, do angels need to rest or sleep sometimes? Maybe. Maybe not. But the idea of some rest and sleep is a good one, even an alluring and calming one. From a human perspective anyhow.