Zara Raab

Caravan—A Tale of Love

Abruptly I could hear the players’ song

under the apple trees, I smoothed my skirt

and raced along the paths to tell the news.

I stopped to listen as they played, and longed

to join their merriment with tambourine

or small guitar. I knew that soon they would

travel eastward along Sierra trails.

Then suddenly I saw you, handsome as

a god among the listening crowd. There stood,

too, my wizened father, gravel-man,

who ducked my stare and, quick, went off, and when

I looked for you again, wanting to come

close by and take your hand, you’d joined the band

with your guitar, and stomped your foot and laughed

and sang, and didn’t come to me that night

or any other night, a dozen years.

Zara Raab is a member of the Powow River Poets. She also helps organize the Poetry Day of the Newburyport Literary Festival. Originally from the West Coast, she has settled north of Boston to be closer to children and to participate in Essex County's vital poetry community. Her work has appeared in The Hudson Review, New Verse News, Verse Daily, The Dark Horse, and elsewhere. Recently published is a revised and expanded edition of her first collection Swimming the Eel, which includes the text of Fracas & Asylum.