What We Turn Away From Before It Arrives

Here in the country

barbed wire fences snake

toward old neighbourhoods.

My eyes follow their meander,

always searching for clues

tacked on to peoples faces,

on to objects and things

that speak their version of

memories not yet faded.

Just as my pen goes dry

a robin flush with pride –

its kindly spirit intact,

shuffles quick, quick, quick

through the ancient grass,

and with an altruistic ease.

prudently starts pecking 

at a few lines of this poem

prior to it gently landing

atop the highest wire

of a barbed wire fence.