MILES AWAY

God’s cold blue eye
is peering
through the window
tonight

while the wind
is attempting to squeeze
the life from the house
with its old farmer’s hands

and still the mysterious
mechanical cricket
turns the crank
on its rusty music box
in the basement.

Meanwhile, miles away
from the once virgin plain
of the page,
a range war is raging
in the canyon
of my skull

and here I sit, waiting
for the signal
but the lines are down
from the fighting.

-Jason Ryberg, 2010