First Place Winner, June 2008 InterBoard Poetry Competition

Poetry

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Poetry

InterBoard Poetry Competition

First Place Winner, June 2008

THE LENGTH OF NEVER *dublinsteve* (SplashHall Poetry) How did the meadowlarks in Wichita remain invisible for over two years? Virgil showed up in the fourth grade with five baby rabbits crammed into a tan briefcase. Two died before lunch recess, one squashed at playground's edge when it took a wrong turn–Kevin stepped on it–and two dissolved into the wheat field from which they were plucked in the first place. Nature seemed bountiful that May. The walk home tripled in length with another relentless search for a yellow breast with the black V. Disappointment quadrupled by suppertime. We toured a grain elevator the next day. I watched the wheat-dotted blacktop fill with sparrows as my voice spilled a current of nevers on the man with the face like a dry riverbed. His voice was smoke and gravel, “Never means something will not happen forever. You should not say that.” Out of the sun dropped a place named Vietnam, then we moved to Ohio, land of cardinals. Red spots dotted the trees and bushes. Shrewd crows attacked row after row of my uncle’s corn. Straw men were useless. Killdeers faked broken wings, lured us into hope and away from their nests. Groundhogs burrowed under tillable soil, escaping from one hole as we dug at another. Still, the sparrows were everywhere. We shot them with BB guns, for a man hidden underneath a John Deere cap. He hated hordes, demanded that we line bodies up for the count. As dust and slivers of husks floated on his coffee he paid us for the deaths, talked about the war and how we would never lose. My voice was oak and mint. “Never means something will not happen forever. You should not say that.” I was in Colorado recently and saw one, a meadowlark. I know now of intentions and accidents, of dark skies and unstable ground, of red spots and guns, of dropped grain that doesn’t matter, of wars and when to dump coffee. I know now that never is a million sparrows later. Judge Patricia Smith’s comments: “The first two lines of this riveting slice of narrative set up a dark and engaging mystery–and each tight stanza is like an unfurling slice of cinema–mesmerizing and crammed with color and heat. I loved the tale, and I loved the vivid search for an answer to the riddle.”


About the InterBoard Poetry Competition Archive of IBPC Winners 2nd Place Winner, June 2008