Tim Peeler: Two Poems

Therapy

I am here

Because I never worked my way

Through grieving.

Because I had to leap

A grave I was dragged toward.

Because I love my brother

Without wanting his land.

Because I cannot call him

By a derogatory nickname.

As he was for forty-some years

Where he worked.

Though I have come up with one

On my own, which I keep to myself.

Because toughness is not really

A Christian thing as I am neither.

Because I have studied the river

Below my house for its Shakespeare.

Because I know every rock

Knuckled into this slippery trail.

Because dysfunction is the noise

That makes us go deaf.

Because I look down into

The unspoiled creek gorge

Where laurel and bramble guard

The second sacred springhead

That trumpets over the rock bed,

Varving the pool with clay enough

To make a better man.

~

The Small Picture

When you’re close enough,

Even chaos looks like order:

The falling star, the overturned

Cattle car, the psychotic mother’s

Meandering explanation.

.

The hammer beaten bucket 

Of memory you dunk your head in

To escape today’s torn sky,

Every sunken grave you pass

In the asylum’s paupers’ cemetery.

---

Copyright 2023 Tim Peeler

Tim Peeler is a retired educator from Western North Carolina who has written twenty-one books of poetry, short stories, and regional histories. Most recently he has collaborated with the Appalachian photographer Clayton Young on books that combine verse narratives and rural images.

Tim Peeler (Source: Morganton News Herald)