Two Posts

Two posts, wooden, below a hill, nearly hidden from view in tall grass,

Almost just walked on past, almost gave them a pass,

But they stopped me and I sat down on the edge of a dry gulch,

By the crooked and twisted branches of a fallen dead tree,

And I looked at those two old wooden posts, standing there,

Bringing to my mind images like prairie ghosts,

Of people of old in these lands building a fence, a gate, with young or weathered hands,

Digging in this dirt, through this chert,

Can’t see faces, just glimpses of forms, gray in my mind,

Working in the wind, building a life, in the past, all that’s left now is traces,

Just two posts standing at the bottom of a hill, standing still.