benjamin haas circus
The Circus
by Lorraine Caputo

Late summer one year
a circus came to the field near our house.
The large trucks filled with animals drove up,
painted like old-time circus wagons,
the forgotten name emblazoned on the sides.
Tents were thrown up in the din of shouting and laughter.
The excitement built as their temporary settlement built.

We’d walk down to the edge of that field,
not daring to step from gravel to grass,
sit and watch these strangers.

The first night, the first performance
we were there
watching the tightrope walkers,
wondering if they really did have holes cut
in the bottoms of their buckets.
The lions and tigers were paraded out,
horseback riders
and tricycle clowns.
We laughed and smiled.

For a week
we’d wander to the field,
walk about the tents,
watch the man make sky blue
and magenta cotton candy.
Barefoot, watching for elephant shit,
cautiously reach our hand out
to touch that dry, wrinkled skin.

Our mother scolded us for going down so often.
But that didn’t stop us
from peeking beneath the tents,
slipping into the secret slits
to watch for just one more time
the ringmaster lead the people
into his world of circus wonders.

For six years they came
to fill those last waning days of warmth.
Then one summer they did not come.
The field lay barren of the brightly colored tents,
the air was still in the absence of elephant trumpeting.
I’d walk through the grass,
feel it rub against my thighs,
feel the earth ooze between my toes.
I’d gaze longingly across that field
wishing that the circus would come back.

Photo by Benjamin Haas.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: We lived in a nature reserve when I was a child. Our neighbors were one other family and the rangers. There was a large field down the hill from out houses. This memory plays like an old movie, over and over, the same summer scenes (year after year) … until the film breaks, and the circus comes no more …

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ABOUT THE  AUTHOR: Lorraine Caputo is a wandering troubadour whose poetry appears in over 300 journals on six continents, and 20 collections of poetry – including Notes from the Patagonia (dancing girl press, 2017), On Galápagos Shores (dancing girl press, 2019) and Caribbean Interludes (Origami Poems Project, 2022). She also authors travel narratives, articles, and guidebooks. Her writing has been honored by the Parliamentary Poet Laureate of Canada (2011) and nominated for the Best of the Net. Caputo has done literary readings from Alaska to the Patagonia. She journeys through Latin America with her faithful knapsack Rocinante, listening to the voices of the pueblos and Earth. Follow her adventures at on Facebook and latinamericawanderer.wordpress.com.