I love to walk alone on the peninsula
among the scrub pine and golden birch –
to trace the shape on the bay
of an old arm whose mud cliffs raise like a fist,

then to read again a plaque the town has placed
here on its height in view of Boston.
This was once a missile site. I’m in a place
where silos sleep, filled to the brim with earth.

As I walk further on, the trees are nodding
like patient older brothers. Another breath
is lifting from the water,
another man is passing with his thoughts.

Sometimes when I’m under threat, anger rises
in my chest and bursts;
bright fingers streak from the apogee
grip me in their palm;
if you are hit we both shower fire,
a part of each of us destroyed.

I want instead to choose to stand at this silo’s lip
gathering the stillness of water and soil
like the men who emptied and emptied their shovels here:
thus to fill with time the deepest hole.

Learn this, unsettled man:
underground even bits of bomb will rust;
what won’t decay will be held for ages
by the roots of wise trees, ancient grasses.

When a glacier raked the face of earth
it raised up this fair and pleading arm;
now sweet grasses grow here,
sheltered only by the sky.

Mid Walsh is a poet, singer, athlete, husband, and grandfather living near the ocean. With an English BA from Yale University and an MBA, he has conducted careers as a carpenter, a hi-tech executive, and a yoga studio owner. His poetry renders his life experiences into the music of language. Mid’s poetry is forthcoming in or has appeared in The Road Not Taken, Nixes Mate Review, Blue Unicorn, Silkworm, and Lily Poetry Review.