When I was a child, we’d lived on the edge of some woods,
Slightly hilly land, crossed with the odd stream or cowpath.
I’d walked there frequently, aimlessly,
Throwing the occasional stone here and there
(Skimming the smaller ones off the surface of the creek,
Displacing mosquitoes and dragonflies,
The larger rocks reserved for thickets of trees,
Rewarding me with a rich thwack if the missile found its target.)
Once I had tossed a great gray projectile
(All but shot-put sized, probably nicked and nibbled
By fossilized trilobites on its edges)
Into a stand of old horse chestnuts,
But the sound that emerged was not the woody report expected,
But an anguished and almost astounded cry,
Nearly human in its astonishment and pain.
I’d winged (more than that, in truth **** near killed)
A hawk sitting inexplicably low in the branches.
In my panic and puzzlement, I’d wrapped the bird in my jacket
(The hawk all but shredding its lining,
Adding to my mother’s already fervent agitation
Over having a wild bird in her kitchen not destined for the oven)
And taken it home, where we’d put it in a cage
(Not a bird cage per se, but the old crate for our dog
Who had wandered into these woods
A few months before when she’d sensed her time was at hand)
Where it sat silently for a couple of days,
Refusing food, water, or any other succor,
Simply staring at us with a searing look conveying a hatred
Which transcended species, language,
Any and all experience a child may have been privy to,
As, in those fresh-scrubbed, clean-linen days of youth,
I had nothing of the hawk’s knowledge of cages.

The River still runs.
Into The Illinois,
Down into The Mississippi,
South through St. Louis and New Orleans
Into the Gulf of Mexico,
Flowing endlessly down, carrying
Sticks and stones and mud and leaves and waste from Spoon River
Into the Gulf and beyond.

The Hill still stands. Steadfast through
Storms and rain and thunder and lightning and sunny days and clear, starlit nights.
And the sleep of those on the Hill is unbroken, yet their voices still whisper
Into the wind and the shadows,
Their voices still scream over the thunder,
And the lightning illuminates the graves from which the voices speak.
For just a second.

For a hundred years the voices told their stories and we listened.
Five generations have passed and the voices have not changed.
Where are the children of the voices on the Hill?
And their children, and their children’s children?
Who will tell their stories?
Will anyone listen?
Phil Lindsey 8/3/14