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Please enjoy Wheeler's poem as the regular editor’s note.

on the shores of babylon

By Chris Wheeler

i.

My minivan hit 250K

several thousand miles ago.

Both of our vans did, in fact,

and the brakes went out a week apart

as if in some silent agreement

that stopping was no longer in the cards.

I like jam bands now, and smoking a pipe

(but only on the weekends). I groan

like my father whether I’m getting up

or sitting down, and I smile like an idiot

when I see young folks in love.

I want to hold her suddenly, constantly

as the earth speeds by beneath us

and the sun ricochets back and forth above.

All things pass away in riots or whimpers,

a constant thrumming beneath

the ground rushing, rushing, rushing on.

The news is always bad

so I watch worms,

whose silence isn’t silence, but industry.

I listen to the oriole,

who hooks his backpack

to our wild cherry tree, to the blackbird

whose chirrup chirree is

as good a missive as one could hope for

in such an age as this.

We hope for this and prepare for that,

seasons all of us, readying the ground.

We live within the sound.

Read more Wheeler at chriswheelerwrites.substack.com