Research: Journals
The Journal
Issue 32.2
Face
Jean Gallagher
Black window in the side
of a barn, one of those
where they keep winter
when they aren't using it,
shows me my face.
It's a kind
of snowstorm face, frozen blue pools
in a landscape of brown and grey grass.
Below some of the larger hills you can see
braided trails where the snow has melted
and run down into the valleys.
And high up there's a path
where someone drove toward the forest
with a plough or something
trailing out behind.
Accustomed to black windows
and barns, its look
says it doesn't hope for much,
though it would like to find a certain weather
going on inside it. So, it craves sunlight;
why not (let feet have the snow
if they're so wild about slogging on)?
It went to sea once, of course, and came home
not quite
like a cloud's remorse above a slough.
Nevertheless, it is my oldest friend, a face maybe
you'd know, a weary
and brother-like garden gate kind of face
half ready to think it knows you, too.
A face that's seen a lot of rain
come over the hill, a face
that came over the hill itself and found
the valley of strangers
who said, "Look at that face! I know that
countryside. Some of us lived there
before the war."
