And Then, Home Again

The cows forgive us our trespasses...

And Then, Home Again

The cows forgive us our trespasses
with their dark Buddha eyes

as we track through the warm wet
of pasture grass. There is no word

to distill the perfume that is bird,
that is bovine, that is earth and green,

that is flowering rot, that is manure.
I will name its shimmer, Holy Ghost.

I will sing its praise as fat bees I once feared
bump from clover to ragweed to goldenrod

and then, home again. The fox who played the role
of Lucifer in last night’s opera is this morning’s archangel:

fur shining like a Sunday morning portrait of Jesus
as bullfrogs thrum Sacred Harp hymns.

And yes, it is spring, and the cows are brown
and white with a smattering of crow shades

all gathered in a lowing circle of prayer;
and I say, intercessor, and you say, lamb.

And the strawberries you picked
are warm and ripe and not too sweet.

by Matt Layne

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Matt Layne writes…

I had a hard day in Montgomery, Alabama recently. I was there attempting to stop a bill from moving out of committee. This legislation, HB385 in Alabama, aims to criminalize the work of school and public librarians and potentially land us in jail for circulating material that politicians, beholden to extremist special interest groups, deem "harmful to minors." One of the representatives, a young man in the leadership of the Alabama State House, called librarians "groomers" from his seat on the dais. I was angry, disgusted, and dismayed that the chair of their committee did not call him to order. Is this acceptable political discourse? What could possibly embolden a politician to blithely label professional librarians as groomers? How does such a person gain any respect from his colleagues? As I drove home again to Birmingham, I daydreamed of contributing to a political challenger to unseat this muppet of a man. I thought about the effectiveness of reporting him to the ethics board or the attorney general. Who can reign in political dialogue when it bucks so wildly and destructively? It's a dark time to be a librarian in this country. Similar bills are being introduced all over the country. There is a concerted attack on the keepers of the words, and we need you to stand with us and speak out, but I digress from the quiet beauty of the poem you're about to read, and I have to say reading it once again this morning brought me a sense of peace, and I hope it does for you as well. 

There is something akin to tamped down dew-wet clover on a warm spring morning in the stanzas of "And Then, Home Again" that fills me with happiness. I love that sometimes, even years after I have written a poem, I still receive the gift of a moment of awe and exhalation and admiration as I wind my way down poetic lines to the concluding thought. There is a warm ripe sweetness in inviting the reader to join on this journey. The speaker's experience is made exponentially richer by the reassuring accompaniment of you, the reader. Trespasses are forgiven. Villains are angels in disguise, and the bees always always hum their way back home.

May the cows forever forgive us our trespasses as we wander through the pastures of this green life. May we extend their grace to one another (even Montgomery, Alabama politicians) as we suffer the hurts and indignities of living in a polarized world. May we never forget the warm wet renewal of springtime and the pleasure of fresh-picked strawberries and love and friendship as we meander together. And may your blossoms bear the abundant fruit of kindness this year. May all your travels, literary or physical, take you to new worlds, and then, home again.

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“And Then, Home Again” appears in Miracle Strip, released August 31, 2022. The music is “Satellite” by Ned Mudd, from the album Buffalo T-Bone.

Miracle Strip, a poetry collection by Matt Layne, is a unique hybrid of the written and spoken word. Each piece of the collection has an end-stop embellishment QR code which, when scanned, transforms the reader into a listener. Layne has recorded each poem, often with the accompaniment of musician and poet, Ned Mudd. The first line of the book invites the reader to “tell me your story, and I will tell you mine,” in the campfire tradition. In Miracle Strip, the reader and poet embark on an experiential journey of memories and the ghosts who haunt us. 

Miracle Strip by Matt Layne is in print! Get your copy today!

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Poet, librarian, raconteur Matt Layne has been poking hornet's nests and looking under rocks for lizards and snakes since he was knee-high to a peanut peg. A founding member of the 1990s improvisational poetry collective, The Kevorkian Skull poets, Layne believes in the radical transformative power found in the intersection of poetry and art, and he wants you to write your truth and share it out loud. A multiple Hackney Award winning writer, he has also been recognized by the National Society of Arts and Letters and been featured in Peek Magazine, Birmingham Arts Journal, Steel Toe Review, B-Metro, and elsewhere. Look for him at your local library.

Ned Mudd resides in Alabama where he engages in interspecies communication, rock collecting, and frequent cloud watching. He is the author of The Adventures of Dink and DVD (a space age comedy). Some of Ned’s best friends are raccoons.

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