Five-Year-Old Eyes – a poem by Ken Gierke

Five-Year-Old Eyes

cue Mozart’s Requiem Aeternam

One of my trips headed home
from New York’s southern tier
to Erie, then on to Cleveland.
From a funeral. Both times.

segue to Dies Irae
	( dee-us eer-i )

The second one, in a blizzard
that had me hoping I’d live
to see Lake Erie on the horizon,
hit too close to home.

transition… Lux Aeterna

But this was the first one,
my first time on those country
back-roads in nearly sixty years.
Driving through Great Valley,
I had to pull on to the shoulder.
I’d been there before.

now Hostias

With five-year-old eyes, I knew
it was the place. I could see it.
An old wood-frame house, just
off the road, hugging the creek bank
behind it like it wanted to fall in
as my little eyes peered over the window
ledge into the water below after
sleeping on the floor among family
I'd never meet again, that part
of my father’s life left behind.

and Lacrimosa

Except, it wasn’t there. All
that remained was a memory
that woke on that country road
in a mind that welcomed
any reminder of those times.

fade to closing of
Vesperae Solemnos de Confessore

Ken Gierke is retired and writes primarily in free verse and haiku. His poetry has been published or is forthcoming in print and online in such places as Poetry Breakfast, Ekphrastic Review, Amethyst Review, Silver Birch Press, Trailer Park Quarterly, Rusty Truck, The Gasconade Review, and River Dog Zine. His poetry collections, Glass Awash in 2022 and Heron Spirit in 2024, were published by Spartan Press. His website: https://rivrvlogr.