A Dinner Bell in the Wind

Crossing a large meadow
I come upon two headstones
both worn almost smooth
set back a little ways
from a crumbling barn
and leaning forward
just enough to escape
most of the old oak’s shade.
Walking farther on
in the direction they
seem to be taking
I come to an old foundation
just a chimney and a cellar.
Looking back one could
almost believe
they had a mind
to be coming home
however long it took
it didn’t really matter.









William Cullen, Jr. is a veteran and works at a social services non-profit in Brooklyn, New York. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Canary, Farming Magazine, Right Hand Pointing, The Drought Anthology and Written River: A Journal of Eco-Poetics.

See more of his work in issues 3.3 and 4.1