Sitting on a Porch Swing at a Hills and Hollars Farm
on Rocky Hill Road, near Bonnieville, Kentucky at 7:02 Central Time on My 65th Birthday

Facing east on the porch swing,

I see the shadowy silver maples of winter

tapped with light

painted on like silver leaf in winter shadow

backed by a rising arc of first light.

My wife and I, on our cold porch swing,

cradling coffee.

Windchimes, a pair of them like us,

shivering out a dischord in minor keys,

D minor and E minor,

into the hollars of the dawn,

our facing panorama.

I snap a shot of whatever lives inside that pan–

stone steps | dormant roses | thrumming nuthatches| the maples’ sap not yet rising

It streams into my phone eye mind.

I put away the camera

as the dawn pipes itself in general, signaling the day’s ‘on-and-on’.

The springs on the porch swing creak steady with the weight of cold.

Singing to us—“Home, home, home.”

Waving us toward that finish line.