Arvilla Fee

Tales Told Round the Fire

 

‘Twas the chill night

of the full harvest moon

when old Billy Brown

started playing a tune.

 

His harmonica wailed;

notes hung from the trees,

dripping like rain,

buzzing like bees.

 

As his tune faded away

into the soft velvet night,

old Billy Brown said,

You want a big fright?

 

‘Twas on this night

five decades ago

a young widow got stabbed

in the bottoms below.

 

He stoked up the fire,

his face ghoulish by flame

and continued his story

about the sweet dame.

 

She was alone

in her garden, you see

when along came a man

from out of the trees.

 

He smiled like the devil,

and the widow grew faint,

he said, bring me your gold,

and I’ll think you a saint.

 

I have no gold,

she bravely replied

and never once looked away

from the man’s evil eyes.

 

Ah, dear lass

I’m suspecting you do

now give me the gold,

and my time here is through.

 

She persisted

she hadn’t not one coin of gold,

and the man drew nearer,

his face grimaced, stone cold.

 

He took out his knife

and slashed through her dress,

grazing her side,

that sweet tender flesh,

 

but he didn’t expect her

to bring down the hoe

right through his skull

in one fatal blow.

 

She buried that man

near her garden that night,

and candles still burn,

her cabin windows alight;

 

though she’s been gone

these many of years,

they say she lies waiting

for any man to come near.

Nature Speaks

 

There is a silence that seeps

into the world

only when humans are quiet,

only when they willingly cease

muttering and mucking about,

and it is in this silence

that I sit, knees drawn up to chin,

making myself as small as possible

beneath a canopy of ancient oaks,

listening to nature’s voice

lifted in song from the beaks

of red-breasted robins,

skittering through the underbrush

on the bottom of chipmunk feet,

snapping dry branches

as a brown doe makes her way

to a sweet-clover clearing.

Even the leaves speak,

a simple shh-shh-shh

borne upon the autumn wind,

and I inhale and exhale,

matching Nature’s unhurried breath.

Arvilla Fee teaches English and is the managing editor for the San Antonio Review. She has published poetry, photography, and short stories in numerous presses, including Calliope, North of Oxford, Rat’s Ass Review, Mudlark, and many others. Her poetry books, The Human Side and This is Life, are available on Amazon. Arvilla loves writing, photography and traveling, and she never leaves home without a snack and water (just in case of an apocalypse). For Arvilla, writing produces the greatest joy when it connects us to each other. To learn more about her work, you can visit her website: https://soulpoetry7.com/