Vernita

Poetry by local writer and poet Mark Clemons

 

East of Yakima 

Flocks of black birds 

Wheel above the freeway,

Scatter over blood brown

Orchards broke by vineyards,

Dust green groves of oak 

And hills gone mauve with sunset,

Their shoulders turned and gullies umber,

All deep in the copper dusk.

 

Rising moon in the night blue east

And a truck stop just before Vernita.

Coasting down the off-ramp, 

I roll into the parking lot and stop,

Caught between the rest rooms

And a tiny building behind a veil of willows.

Six white windows shine through the fronds.

Above the door beaming words in neon yellow:

chapel by the freeway. 

 

Idling in the parking lot, 

I watch the second line of that chapel sign

Blink yellow one word at a time: 

stop  and  pray .

It keeps on blinking

As ghostly ochre in the fading light

The surrounding hills abide

And wait and wait while I decide.

 

 

Mark Clemens 

Photo by Joel Rogers

Originally published in The Orchards Poetry Journal – July 11, 2023