Brian Simoneau
Neighborhood Ode
Praise the bare branch, broken
planters spilling soil and seeds unseen
till spring. Praise the icicle’s daily
melt and nightly freeze, reminder
every season gathers and scatters all
at once, ever a harvest and ever
its chaff. Praise the chaff, make
of it altars. Praise the wreckage
of every act, patches of yellow grass
and mounds of shoveled snow, howling
wind and summer’s stagnant heat. Praise
the cello and the cellist who lugs it
on a crowded bus. Praise
buses, praise trains, the driver
who rings a bell for a child
who waves and waits for another
to pass her way. Praise the way
of trolleys and trains, buses
rumbling round and round, a song
the child sees and so believes in song.
Brian Simoneau reads “Neighborhood Ode”
Brian Simoneau is the author of the poetry collections No Small Comfort (Black Lawrence Press, 2021) and River Bound (C&R Press, 2014). His poems have appeared in Boston Review, Cincinnati Review, Colorado Review, Crazyhorse, Four Way Review, The Georgia Review, Mid-American Review, Salamander, Third Coast, Waxwing, and other journals. Originally from Lowell, Massachusetts, he lives near Boston with his family.