Circa 1900 and Other Poems by Daril Bentley

Circa 1900

Waldo sharpened the blades
of his turn-of-the-last-century sled
and slid

Downhill at age eighty-four.
His wife chided him, “Old fool!”
It jades,

The spirit, with the practicality
survival crams into an aging head.
What more

Can it do to the slat-and-metal tool
discovered in inanity hid?
Pity

So many slide into dead
in hours made days; days, decades—
done did.

December Branches

Time must loathe green eyes
————————-that look at the earth
and see through its lies the verdant reflected
——-where there is none.

And Time must wear white hair
————————-it shakes out when
the green that has aged into coffins of amber
——–is gone with the dead.

Time’s fingers, I am certain,
————————-are long and bony and bare—
twisted with eons of reaching forth
———-through December.

Are these Time’s begrudging, tortured limbs
————————-scratching at the skies?
They must be. It must be Time’s
———tongue is forked and its teeth point north.

Through Winter Windows

Bluish Arctic vixen and snake-slough gray this sky
that moves like a torpid timber rattler through
cold slate stone so slowly you barely notice the progress.

Much of the wild has sheltered itself away from the ice
and snow and the quiet-toned musings humans do
to be okay with reflection on decisions gone awry.

You see them in impermeable dens shedding a guess
for a near-certainty in turn driven out like the field mice
their denials sweep away from the thoughts they chew.

Daril’s latest collection, The Box, was published by Outskirts Press in 2021 and is available here.

Learn more about Daril on our Contributors’ Page.

(Photo: Tony Fischer/ flickr.com/ CC BY-ND 2.0)

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Daril Bentley

Daril Bentley is author of several books of poetry and numerous poems published in journals in the U.S. and abroad. He has been a semifinalist for the Yale Series of Younger Poets, a finalist for the New Mexico Book Award for Poetry, and recipient of an Honorable Mention in the Writer's Digest International Book Award. He is also a Black Mountain Press "The 64 Best Poets" Series author. A bird conservationist, he makes his home in Elmira, NY.