After You Left
A branch falls,
breaks in two,
rests belly down,
bark covered
in mud.
Rain puddles
under the pine.
Oak leaves
on the patio stain
the smooth stones.
Dry, they slide
with the wind.
Windows shake.
A pane cracks.
Ronald J. Pelias spent most of his career writing books, e.g., The Creative Qualitative Researcher (Routledge), Lessons on Aging and Dying (Routledge), and Writing and Other Familiar Things (Routledge), that call upon the literary as a research strategy. Now in retirement, he writes for the power of presence and the possibilities of disappearance.