Parable

by Allen Weber
conjunction
Second Place, February 2013
Judged by Deborah Bogen


Uncle fell for a migrant girl,
as hard as an Alcatraz rose,
then perished with the harvest moon.

So wading through the wait-a-bits
at the edge of a freshly turned field
Grandma searched sad furrows of earth.

There’s no competing with Sorrow,
Child. Still unschooled in transience,
I asked if she meant to say, Love.

Don’t become what happens to you.
When the springtime plow turns loose
a bone, remember why it’s best

to keep a girl who knows how deep
to put the beast that winter killed.


Here is another poem that invokes an ancient story mode (“Uncle fell for a migrant girl,/ as hard as an Alcatraz rose,”) to say something current and biting (“Don’t become what happens to you./When the springtime plow turns loose/ a bone….”) --Deborah Bogen