Lorraine Jeffery

Beginning Dust

This tech generation of
grandchildren, arrive
with phones, videos,
apps and games, to ride
4-wheelers down dusty trails.

No sparkling stream—
this is drought country,
and dust coats the rental
cabin when ATVs grind by.

Nearby dead undergrowth
has been cleared around
tree trunks, branches hacked
off at various lengths,

Bored children troop outside.
Thump!
I listen and wonder.
Click, thud.  Thump.
Snap, clickety, click.
Bang.  Clack. 
Click, thud.  Thump.

I go to the back door—
three kids, hands clutching
assorted sticks, hit trunks,
sawed off branches,
tapping, cracking,
thumping out a
syncopated rhythm.

They sway and step
in counter point,
each jazz player listening
to the others and adding.

Thump, whack, click.
Ancient DNA dancing
back to stones and sticks;
they once again
create beginning music.

Lorraine Jeffery has won numerous prizes and published many poems in journals including Clockhouse, Canary, Rockhurst Review, Naugatuck River Review, Orchard Street, Two Hawks and Bacopa Press. Her first book is titled When the Universe Brings Us Back, 2022, and her chapbook titled Tethers, by Kelsay Books, will be forthcoming.