The Parable of the Sower
Two trees with bad rootsPlanted by Lamont, dead six years nowHe’d have replaced them had we told himBut we watched each stunt in their individual wayswaiting for them to figure it outWe couldn’t know thatthey didn’t have meansThis morning I cut them down17 years of tryingJust a quick crescendo of throttleAnd they fell to bounce softly on their boughsthe way that evergreens do,pine cones like little bellson the ground
We built this house at the turn of the Centurywhen we were thirty,and had been poor long enoughto dare to believe ourselves richBefore we arrivedthe neighbors courted in our woods,walking deer trails yet unbroken by a houseFor a while they told us that story every time they saw usNow they’re moved away and we tell the story
The turn of the Century seems a ridiculous thing to remember.100 years, a random unitto house our lives, most of whichare spent outside trespassingundeveloped romance,swinging handswith a husband’s conceit
Local
I’d never seen anyone outside of that house,just a dirty four wheeler parked by the sagging porch,an old dishwasher next to a rotting doghouse.I’d made assumptions about the occupantsas some of us do, remembering.
As we walked pasta young girl appeared at the top of the driveholding out her hand to the dog,dressed in the gearof the local high school track team.The kind of kidwho wears their good grades and quiet potentialthe way that others wear punk or goth or stoner.You’ve made a friend, I said to the dog,who was licking her hand.Have a good walk, she said,after a time, standing
and set off up the road at a slow jog,the kind that is taughtto be paced and certainto get you where you are goingcross country from your start.
Ferret Man
Stained undershirt, gray whiskered, a bulk staring inquisitively through the screen into the October leaf swirl at my daughter on the porch Trick or Treating.Oh, he said. Hang on.Rummaged around the house for candy.Most of the mountain kids gone to town for trunk or treat,not fulfilling their father’s idea of what will make the better memory: dirt roads, cloud scudded blue dark, everything creepy, winter breathing hot on the truck windows house to house.
Moon glint from a rusty piece of well casing half buried in the yard, and a triumphant return.Holding a crumpled Snickers bar.My emergency stash, he said.He reached suddenly to pick up two ferrets, draping them around his neck side to side. The white-blue poltergeist of a TV shone in their thin, bristly fur. My daughter took a step back. Don’t want them to get out, he said.He cracked the door to the smell of weasel, decades of house. Dropped the candy into her bag. Thank you, she said.Sure, he said, as if to another adult and closed the door.
We saw him every Halloween thereafter, but never outside of the holiday or his house.Ferret Man.We added him to the oddities of the season.
His car, an old painter’s van, topped with bird shit splattered wooden ladders, covered in road dust, listing on dry rotted tires, maintained his presenceuntil last month, when several strange cars and trucks appeared in his driveway. A few days later the contents of the house began to appear on the yard.This is how it goes around here when someone dies: heirs arrive, usually from out of state, throw open the windows and eject their agoraphobic relative outside in a pile of stained and broken tubs, accessible toilet seats, mildewed mattresses, and ferret cages: a vomited miasma of unkempt promise that reaches out while you drive bydespite the Lysol and fresh air, the orbital sanders and paint, to touch youwith the terrible hesitancy that haunts us.
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Learn more about Matt on our Contributors’ Page.
Matt’s latest collection, Disappearing by the Math, was published in 2023 by Silver Bow Publishing in 2024 and is available here.
(Photo: Deviations with Ray/flickr.com/ CC BY 2.0)
Matt Thomas is a smallholder farmer, engineer, and poet. His recent work can be read in Pinhole Poetry, Susurrus Magazine, and Ponder Review. Disappearing by the Math, a full-length collection, was published by Silver Bow in 2024. He lives with his family in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Latest posts by Matt Thomas (see all)
