Vacant Lot

Here’s the first poem from my index card boxes for poems that start with the letter V:

vacant lot—

a dozen grasshoppers

ticking in a jar

I hope the last line in this poem comes as a small surprise. A young boy (no doubt) has been collecting these grasshoppers, for whatever purpose, perhaps amusement. Will they be released? Was there some other purpose to this task, perhaps useful? I think of a particular vacant lot that was not far from our house when I was growing up—and it was right next door to the house where one of my best friends in grade five lived, Colin Steele. We were both on a soccer team coached by his dad (see his obituary). As a kid I believed my friend’s dad used to be a professional player for Motherwell in the Scottish league. Although I don’t know if that was true, he was definitely born in Motherwell, and to this day I follow Motherwell in the standings. My friend and I used to play in that field, though not necessarily soccer, and I suppose it must have had grasshoppers. It’s a serendipity to me that, just at the mention of a vacant lot, this tangentially related poem would bring back these memories.

I first wrote this poem on 26 October 2018, in Seabeck, Washington, at that year’s Seabeck Haiku Getaway. Garry Gay attended that year, and this poem was the third verse in a rengay we wrote together, titled “Forgotten.” I’ve not forgotten that our theme was forgotten things, and on 18 March 2019 we submitted our collaboration to the 2018 Seabeck anthology. That book, Sound of a Leaf, was published in 2020, and is available on Amazon.

—31 May 2025 (previously unpublished)