And Now What? Poem by Tony Walton

The snow this morning falls
it is wet and young

and will wash away. I can smell
the grass below
my shoes ease down into the mud.

The few women from my life
are still sleeping
somewhere in Minnesota or Ohio

I walk across the pasture with only
a few young colts for company.

Timid and big boned
they are like girls I remember

from school, who never
said much, and kept their heads

looking down, and their arms crossed
against their growing bosom

They are nearly forty now.
Like me, they must sometimes look out

windows on early mornings
onto silent backyards, with rusting barbeques
and the fences of houses in neat rows

I imagine they go back to bed
and think of whoever used

to make them happy
and wonder where

they have been taken.


I don't know why I'm wandering
out here this morning

I don't care about the girls
Whether they've made
sense of their lives.
They can have it.

I only want to walk
a little longer further away
from the house

and feel the cold,
raise my face to
the falling snow.

I will resolve nothing today.