Bruce Guernsey's Poetry

DISTANCE

There is a house across the field.

From the other side where I started
it did not seem so far away.

I have been walking towards it a long time,
through mud, the turned ground,
and now this snow beginning to fall.

The house has grown
only slightly larger
and I think I see someone outside.

Yes, I am sure of it—
people, two or three, beside the house,
moving about.

I am waving, suddenly waving,
but out so far in this openness of field
will not be seen or heard.

Faster, walk faster,
before they go inside
whoever they are, before they close the door
across the field
where nothing is growing,
the gray, flat horizon.