Spoken by One Who Didn’t Listen
People around Elmira tell the story different ways,
but it always starts on the north side,
where the Chemung drags slow through town
and the hills decide who they’re going to notice.
Harris Hill is the worst for it.
That ridge remembers things.
Ask anyone whose porch faces north,
they’ll tell you the shadow arrives
before the evening does.
Old-timers say if you hear whistling after dark,
don’t turn toward the woods.
Don’t look curious.
Don’t look hopeful.
The Whistler sounds friendly, they say,
the way a locked door sounds harmless
until someone jiggles it from the other side.
One fall night a kid went up there alone,
past the glider museum where the wind
still plays the ribs of forgotten wings.
He heard a tune - thin, bending in the middle -
and he made the mistake of listening twice.
They found his backpack days later
near the overlook above Eldridge Park.
No tracks leading away.
Just pine needles smoothed clean
and a long drag mark
like something slid through the dark
without touching the ground.
Now and then,
on a wind-sharp night,
folks on the north side swear they hear it...
a whistle threading through porch rails,
too soft to be warning,
too warm to be safe.
People say it’s the river.
Or the glider hangars settling.
But if you ask the ones
who’ve lived here long enough,
they’ll shake their heads and tell you:
No.
That’s Harris Hill.
And he’s looking for another soul
to follow him into the trees.
♱
I turned toward the sound
when I should’ve turned home.
Now I keep watch from the hill I feared.
If you hear whistling after dark,
don’t raise your head.
It isn’t meant for you...
not yet.
GBS jr
2011
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