“Continuance”

Decision made
permanently

out back
over the fence

a hundred-mile trek
secluded riverland

hidden between cliffs
paradise

building a large treehouse
on a bank of magical trees

never forgetting
their code of whispers

dreams of heaven’s beam
spotlighting your safe haven

where you’ll never hunger
for peace in the everlasting

continuance
of the river rim
and walks in the soft sand.

A long time ago, Stephen Jarrell Williams was called by some, the Great Poet of Doom…  Now, he writes at night, enthused, and waiting for the Coming Good Dawn.

VIDEO CASSETTES

Emptying the particle-board cabinet
That housed our prehistoric VCR:
VHS cassettes of high school commencements,
Grainy wedding receptions,
Caroline in Oklahoma!, 1986,
Vouchsafed to us in sacred trust,
Even without a means
To live those hours again.
We could, I suppose, have them
Put on DVD,
Assuming there will be a means
To live those hours again.
If not, who will ever know
What her children looked like,
Crawling on the floor,
In New Castle, Delaware,
In 1999.

Robert Demaree is the author of four book-length collections of poems, including Other
Ladders, published in 2017 by Beech River Books. He is a retired school administrator
with ties to North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, where he lives four
months of the year.