village evening report

checking from our front step I feel a slight breeze out of the South,
in the East an oval, vertical-egg moon hangs, with blurry Mars to the right,
a few houses away at the corner an occasional car passes,
slightly left of the moon, two hundred yards from my door, a barge dredges the river
with constant engine hum and a soft horn blast every few minutes
and that woeful musical note echoes along the river.
sixty-six degrees at nine this Thursday evening
with ten thousand crickets, then a distant passing train horn,
while inside our home the sound of clocks ticking
accompanys the muffled turning of the barge engine,
and we’ll read until bedtime.
that’s this evening’s small village report