October 2015

Orpheus

by Leonore Wilson

He walks down the hill alone

away from me, with his bike

slung over his right shoulder

like a silver lyre, this man

who will pedal the eighteen miles

to the factory where he will mix

barley and hops and yeast

and water and watch as the alchemy

of beer cooks and the steam

rises out over the sunflower fields

and back pastures of the air force

town wishing he was on those wheels

again coming back through

the beneficence of buckeyes,

their flowery scent catching in his hair,

his sweat alive with the memory

of morning when we were

awakened by the same pure songbird

in the far canyon, the one hidden

we have yet to name, but

there steady as sunlight

and mist as we sidle up face to face

and our sleepy eyes open

as if we were the only dependable gods

on earth lending

our entire breath to the day.

from Western Solstice, published by Hiraeth Press

Leonore Wilson is the author of Western Solstice and Tremendum, Augustum, and has published in Quarterly West, Madison Review, Third Coast, Poets Against the War, and other journals. She has taught at universities and colleges throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and won fellowships to the University of Utah and Villa Montalvo Center for the Arts. She lives on her family cattle ranch in Napa, California.