This Day and Thereafter
By Josh Mahler
May 5, 2025
May 5, 2025
|
Bright blue morning,
cold wind thru the trees, men taking short steps down the slanted roof. They hammer in place new shingles, one atop another, even rows of dark slate— efficient strikes of split air. I watch from my deck their precise movements, how they pause and converse in a language I can’t hear— tools they clutch, a chosen life, by and by, charitable light that warms their pockets. At dusk they will finish, and what of this moment as a captured story, evidence of history? What does it mean to understand? Years from now, I hope their children trace the calluses they carry, reciting obituaries written by hand. As for me, I hope I die alone, somewhere in the woods without preservation. Let my body sustain the creatures, all the dust prospering for the earth — the sacred dispersal as we wait for death to grant us immortality. |
Josh Mahler lives and writes in Virginia. His poems have appeared in Denver Quarterly, Tar River Poetry, Quarter After Eight, South Dakota Review, The Louisville Review, The Carolina Quarterly, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Potomac Review, The Southern Poetry Anthology, from Texas Review Press, and elsewhere.
Author’s Note:
This poem started with the sound of hammering and conversation I couldn’t quite hear. Curious, I stepped out onto my balcony and watched a group of men working together to replace the roof of a house across the street. It was a cold morning with a clear sky, and that’s how I wrote the first stanza, by describing what I saw as accurately as possible. The rest of the poem came easily after those first few lines.