Carol Bindel lives quietly in rural Maryland from where she writes often and publishes occasionally. Her writing has appeared in numerous places, including Time of Singing, Women of Spirit, Mature Living, The Pen Woman, Chesapeake, Late Knocking, Manorborn and The Gunpowder Review. One of her poems was chosen to be the text of a cantata commissioned and sung by the Harford Choral Society in celebration of their 50th anniversary.
Fall 2010
Table of Contents - Vol. VI, No. 3
Carol Bindel
I stood
still on the banks
of Deer Creek and said
Tell me something.
After a time the water answered,
I flow. I am
a small but integral part
of the circulatory system
for the world. I carry
what is given me to carry.
I passed the blue heron, the male
so beautiful in his bloomage,
and did not alter my stride,
did not gaze at him straight
on, out of respect.
But I whispered to him,
Tell me something.
He whispered back,
I belong
in this particular place, at home
where you are not. I am
perfect and beautiful. I know
when I have enough.
At that moment I did not
hear the water, the bird
nor any other
thing in the world ask, say
Tell me something
but perhaps I didn't know how
to listen for their request
because later, upon
reflection,
it seems their patience is begging,
begging for us
to give them back some wisdom.
The sun sets through its glory of color and night settles.
I observe the shifting splendor only in glances
through a polished window from where I work
at a gray machine, the egg grader, motor whirring
those winters of my early teens, home on the farm,
our nearest neighbor half-a-mile by field.
Chores complete, I turn out all the lights.
Sometimes the barn is dark, too, and I am the last one done.
I blindly step from the chicken house onto the lovely ground.
My young eyes adjust, I am safe
in the clear night, in the crisp air
on a known and trusted path
under that navy-black sky so thick with stars it seems
like the misty spray of a huge but silent waterfall
flung, white, across the sky.
I, alone, am mistress of my small and limitless universe.
In the kitchen, two ceiling bulbs burn, and fire in the stove.
Mama, Papa and one sister wait. Supper is on the table.
© Carol Bindel
