Seven League Boots
And as it ever shall be. . .
so here, the red
car flashing past, silvery
fins, a blur, its wake awakening me
to when I was
long ago, on a corner
in Fort Wayne, and the sky
just then lifting
over the night’s ravaged horizon of storm,
lifting itself into blue blazes and men
soon wiping their brows
miserable in their Sunday best
slouching out from First Christian,
and I thought I knew
something then about
Sunday afternoons and the peace
of quiet and the steady breeze and Mother
lying down in the bedroom
and Pop coming out from there after
smoking a rare cigarette
and that faraway smile
I would only see then
and on those nights he fell asleep
reading Richard Halliburton
while the fights
droned on in the background
and perhaps he never did
look sharp as the commercial urged
but he did look
pretty much
like a goddamned god to me.
[Author’s Note: Richard Halliburton was a popular travel/adventure writer of the 1920’s and 1930’s. His last book was Seven League Boots.]
Born and raised
in rural Indiana, Marc Harshman has lived for nearly thirty years
in West Virginia where he taught sixth grade. Publication of his
poems include The Georgia Review, Wilderness, 5 AM, Shenandoah, Snow
Monkey, Tusculum Review, and The Progressive. His third
chapbook of poems, Local Journeys, was published by Finishing Line in
2004. He is also the author of ten children’s books including The
Storm, a Smithsonian Notable Book for Children. His eleventh title is
forthcoming from Dutton/Penguin.