The Old Mule

Williamsburg County 1974

This is the sound of
a live oak road. Salt-sand path,
the glow of the living in
their rooms, thin windows
and the comfort of a family
around a meal.

Split hickory piled beneath
a stone mantle. Follow their arc
of history back to the beginning.

This is where the first Jacob
pulled up in the ferry boat,
moored to the old
rice dock, bird perch.

Came down from Greenville,
a chance on new land. Wife with
promising belly, both hard
with travel, hands with heavy
lines, planted gardens of
melon and greens.

And tonight we find the group,
a century down our map,
red cheeked with health
and prospering with the
assistance of rare weather,
a white along the river,

has them locked together

the children drawing on pads,
filling in sketches of roosters with
reds and black. Wife and
man tucked back after light,
their bit of quiet, a theft, time
edged back to the river, with
catfish, the whippoorwill.

They make motions toward
gentle sleep, and the house
heaves smoke from pipes, stays
warm. This is the sound
of our next story.

Set Back

Our tired horses have hungry eyes
and this stale camp, wrapped with
weeds and pine smoke, may turn
us all back to the city. But we would
never do any good there, and the
natives are hostile, and I have never
been good with cards. So that leaves
the sap plume of desert sage, flasks
of terrible spirits and memory after
memory of the good weather in
Obregon. Bring word if you hear any,
our boot socks are stung through
with nettle, and it is a tin box heart
moan in the middle of the worst
desert in broke down history. If
we could only move, we would win.

Once More

This is our great moment.
Sing with the thrill of summer,
a light dress, hand through the air—
our still night simmering with the
vigor of new growth. We are
so close.

I listen to the beach
sounds—sand and water,
and see your mind is distant.
Draw me in to your pull.

It is more than the sweet straw
of your hair, your scent
of dry ocean and shells, sand
in your palm. What carries us in
is the spin of our globe—such small
matter—a blue hung out in forever
black. Let me make this easier.
Swim with me.  Lead me out
just beyond the last time.

Marshalik and Garvin

This is tragic. So sad. I usually stay away from current events here, but this affected me in a great way. I don't know why, exactly, with all the chaos around us now. Maybe I relate to these guys--both in transition, doing something for a little while, until a new note played. Maybe I felt a connection because I was right there a week ago, wandering along with my tourist book. So I thought I would mention it. What a quick run of life; what a great quiet night. May some peace find them.

A Good Fall

A lazy poem of heartbreak and tragedy for Sunday. Would you expect anything less?

--

Man overboard, throw
a raft or some good cape.
Amid a steel blue tomb of

waves, almost sunk. What
flimsy paddles we are born
with, and so much water.

He dreams of days of flight,
when large birds took to the
air, marshes of crane-necked

beasts. Over the edge of his face,
another lap against his time. And
at his ear, sounds of fresh plants

being chewed—the snap of cellulose
and green. How does one play out
such a ridiculous fate. Floating away

from that rust hulk barge, oil ship,
the one whose window afforded
a slight visage, a way to look back

and wonder how things are at home.
A lamp lit, a fold of paper, dinner,
even. He goes through this once more.

Song of Open Water

This song you sing—
a bird in the throat
from your Atlantic.
Broad strokes of latitude
without sail. Drift only.
And the fish you pass,
the oysters buried in mud.
Wood-sharp hull slices salt,
depths of a steam groan.
Low. And by night, closer,
while I wait. The bedroom
ceiling is posted with charts,
and I imagine your progress
across them, your sail. Draw
back to me now, be set aflame.
The tide has pulled sheets
from our toes, and we burn.

Notes on a City

My last strike, heaven sent. What
soft wail of dislocation, driving

my spirits from the easy places.
The further out, the more they weep

and I am starting to hear to burn of lights–
the lamps of exit and entry. Out there,

slate walks burn with the knowledge
of those who passed, those to come.

And our crowds, in the grip of terrible
youth, stride before a tide of all

yet to happen. Pearl white walls,
a sea of inside turned out, foam of

shore waves on sand stretched to
night. Hands held up, palms north,

bodies and parts of speech. This is our
curve through a wind of speed and change.

Our earth toils around a stick-bent center,
ready to loft our memories into some others’

lives. And somehow, us two together
takes terror from this fall.

11 Degrees

Well, this mule is off to the big apple. This should be quite a scene. And I have mud on my boots. Will that be a giveaway that I am not a park-sloper? What will I eat?

In any event, I will see you guys upon return. Unless they take me. Look for smoke signals.

Kooser / Dishwater

Kooser is such a good poet that it is starting to piss me off.

Ted Kooser
from Delights and Shadows. © Copper Canyon Press

Dishwater

Slap of the screen door, flat knock
of my grandmother's boxy black shoes
on the wooden stoop, the hush and sweep
of her knob-kneed, cotton-aproned stride
out to the edge and then, toed in
with a furious twist and heave,
a bridge that leaps from her hot red hands
and hangs there shining for fifty years
over the mystified chickens,
over the swaying nettles, the ragweed,
the clay slope down to the creek,
over the redwing blackbirds in the tops
of the willows, a glorious rainbow
with an empty dishpan swinging at one end.

A Long Walk

Well the flowering apricots are in white, and the willows are starting to green. On my way to the tailor I saw great groups of people parading around town, eating ice cream and looking over their shoulders.  It feels like the 1940's here. Don't ask why.