Our country house
lies between
a twist of Gossamer Creek and the King’s Road,
wide highway of fortune
which runs to Baltimore, Bethesda and beyond,
which lines the bay and banks of the Chesapeake
and carries all here and there and farther.
One sunny day, I pruned the mulberry bush
and spied two men in cloaks come ambling,
with weathered hats and battered boots
a thief and liar walking,
two for the road with silver in their pouches
which jingled as they came.
Drawing near, the thief peered out
from the hollow of his hat,
he took me for a country friar
and looking for absolution, began to speak:
He stole for peaches, prunes and prickly pears,
persimmons were his weakness,
He’d eat his fill ‘til seeds stuck in his teeth,
at night they’d sleep in the flimsy tent erected by
the the shoddy tales of the liar.
To keep warm they’d burn the straw he took
from barns and mattresses, so cunning was his craft,
he’d gather straw as people slept
and sneak away like fog.
I led them to the screened in porch
and burned some sage for purity;
after hearing his confession
I spoke a Eucharistic Ode.
To bring them back into the fold,
I prepared a host of mulberry wine
and sesame bread, we shared the cup
and silver plate as dusk arrived on time.
I asked the men about their sudden change of heart
and the thief croaked a mournful tune:
His mother dead and gone for twenty years,
he’d wake at dawn to hear her sobbing from beyond the grave
and rock himself in shame without a way
to console her.
The liar wept and spoke about his higher self,
which wanted peace, respect and privilege
which wanted honor and to provide,
though all of this he never could attain.
His lies, he said were wishes from his heart,
webs woven for protection and convenience,
though they demanded doubling back as one
strand and the next dissolved like lacy sugar on his cake
that he alone was left to eat,
as no one cared to join him in the end.
Silent now we stand in the fading light
while the whip-poor-wills usher in the night;
Called by this spirit of my hearth and home
I bow my head to pray:
Lord of all, of children, cats and cellar mice,
of owls, oxen and weathervanes,
Hear tonight the sorrows of these men
who’ve made their way along this highway
with guile and treachery
and forget-them-not in this and every hour
and know their fate is in the hands of men,
will be decided in the halls of justice, kept separate
from your domain of dreams and from
the territory of heart and soul,
Keep them in your care as night descends
and watch over them however their fates turn out,
for both have plucked in their fists not only
that which is not their own
but also thorns and briars from the tree
of sadness and despair
and help them to turn to a new manner and mode
for tomorrow stands for us all.
With that, I break off sprigs of juniper
and place them in the bills of their hats,
press in their palms half dollars and send
them down the road to the tenpenny tavern,
where they may find ale, bread and bedrest.
© Henry Kurth 2018