Sundays on the ranch are somethin',
Just after morning chores are done,
I head up to the house on a dead run,
I've called the herd and put the buckets out,
Fed the chickens, called the horse, "Old Son,"
Heard the rooster yammering at the rising sun;
Old dog is baying loud to add some fun....

Meanwhile, at the house,
The wife has rattled up the kids and lined em out,
When I come in, they clear the bathroom out,
So I can get a shave and morning shower,
And off we'll head to church in half an hour.

Or so we think....
It's then the neighbor calls to say our milk cow's swinging by,
Bell clanking off-step time to her butter-churning udder,
"She's headed north toward town!" he chortles mirth,
"Maybe she wants to hear old Pastor Perth!" I mutter.

All jokes aside, I hang the phone and grab my cap,
We pile in the truck to try and get her back....
We have a chance if we can turn her 'round above the hill....
Why is it Sundays sweet Dolly becomes such a pill?
A simple rule of nature I wish I could avoid,
Is if a plan is put in place, as sure as Lloyd,
Our Guernsey chooses then to go out on a spree,
And Pastor Perth in town prays extra hard for me.

I planted a mango seed,
Hoping?
Not sure what...

But the mango grew
Out of its context,
Poked shiny green leaves
Looking for sun and surf,
But found itself awakened
In a land of snow and cold.

Seven leaves into its
Exponential Mango growth,
The newest leaf
Yellowed...
Shriveled...
Died.

The Minnesota Mango
Meditates now...
Watered, but waiting....
Slumbering?
Planning a spring break?
Meditating?
Waiting for summer sun?
Perhaps....

Today
I heard about
A neighbor boy
Who smuggled in
A baby alligator
From the Bayou,
South and warm.

At least my Mango
Stays inside its
Crockery planter,
And an alligator jail break
Will leave him
Freezing in his tracks...

We'll see what happens
In the summer.

When Technology died,
some of us merely shrugged and
Tried to go back to before...

Only it wasn't the same...
So many hard-wirings gone,
So many places where we used to go,
So many thoughts we used to know,
Forgotten in an ethereal swirl...
Internetted and forgotten.
Power plants done, and no more juice
To feed along the sagging wires.

Once the Internet went down,
(Without so much as a diminishing blip
Of dying light (cathodes were gone)),
Ah, Lord, we missed the ethereal glow...
Screens now dead and flat,
Unable even to reminisce
The comfort-glow of former irritants,
The fuzziness 0f electronic snow....

And telephones! My Lord!
To think of how we used to talk!
Electronic prayers, each other we implored...
So much connected,
We forgot the depths of face to face,
Now cellular paperweights lie dormant,
Longing for at least a little life,
Reminding us those days are gone.

We pass our little news
Word of mouth now,
Word of mouth to ear,
Only if the ones
We want to know are near.

Art Bouchard,
My father,
Never marched a drill,
Nor fired an angry shot...
Recounted fond memories
I've heard so many times:
How long ago, when I was very young,
He and our neighbor,
Art Pribnow,
Up before the sun,
Engaged in tractor battles
(Dad was very sure he won).

My father woke those mornings,
Early 1960s,
With the popping cough of
Worn diesel pistons
Clattering out white smoke...
Then blue and black,
As engine heat and friction
Tightened gaps,
Sealed compression,
And the motor steadied into an even roar.

Across the county road
Our only neighbor led or followed suit,
Sending smoke and sound
To drown the morning songs
of meadowlarks and robins.

Fifty years later,
Dad laughed in recollection,
"We started rising just a little
Earlier each day.
Started up our tractors
In a sort of game
Called, 'Who's out first?'"

Six became a quarter of,
Then five-thirty backed to four.
One tractor or the other roared,
Early and then earlier
To be the first to pull
Into the waiting fields.
When three-thirty came around
My mother shook her head,
But if she said a word,
I never heard.

These battling neighbors
Even started engines up
Before they ran,
Milking buckets swinging,
to their barns to chore
As early became earlier
in the little farmers' war.

One day in town,
By happenstance,
A meeting came between the two.
My father, being younger,
Had energy for more,
But old Art Pribnow shook his head,
Grabbed my dad's hand and said,
"Let's stop this foolishness
Before one of us is dead!
I don't know about the hours you keep,
Or what got in our heads,
But I admit, I need my sleep!"

The farmer battle ended then.
A hand shake and a smile
Between two farmer friends,
Created country lore,
Remembered here a little while,
As, "The Early, Earlier War."

We sit,
Witnesses
To Immolation,
Acknowledging Death.
Vap'rous vows now vanished;
Infidelity preceding
The wedding day,
Following after,
Covered deftly under
Lies compounding lies,
One holding true,
One never so,
And so we sit over
Coffee and Divorce,
Now that the truth is out.

We sit,
Witnesses to small talk:
"You may have the furniture";
"Insurance ends in May";
"Do you have a question?"
"There's nothing left to say."

We sit;
She leaves;
Her emptiness
Remains;
We three sit tight,
Uncertain,
Nothing left to say,
But still we sit musing
Coffee and Divorce.

Who are these farmers,
And who, these fertile fields,
Verdant under native grass,
That stand un-plowed,
That shake beneath the plow,
That lie now fallow,
That bear the planted seed,
That wear the heavy grain,
That await the Harvest pain?

And who, these Harvesters,
And who, these close-shorn fields,
Desolate in short-cut stubble,
That stand, stiff in silence,
That wear the heavy tracks,
That have endured the harvest,
That yielded up their dead,
That bristle through the falling snow,
That whistle wind-song low?

And who, these merry Farmers,
And who these stubbled fields,
Glistening beneath the melting snow,
That warm beneath the glowing sun,
That host the migrants of the sky,
That tremble the biting plow,
That accept the falling seed,
That wait beneath the welcome rains,
That cycle through the seasons once again?

I remember reading
Martin Luther King, Jr's
Letter from Birmingham Jail
Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom
Mark Twain's Huck Finn
DuBois' Souls of Black Folk
For the first time

The words of Chief Joseph
Sitting Bull
Tecumseh
James Welch
and Alexie Sherman
And others of indigenous kind
Linger like arrows in my mind.

Of course, there's
Gilgamesh's forlorn quest for Enkidu;
Osiris, Amun, Ra, and Seth,
Homer's Illiad and Odyssey,
And Virgil's Roman treatment -
(For whom the gods destroy
We all must learn bereavement).

I remember reading
Milton's Paradises (lost and found)
And Dante's Infernal quest for Heaven
Through the bowels of Hell with Virgil's spritely guide
And up the Devil's staircase with Beatrice by his side.
John's Revelation of Times' End;
And LaHaye's money-making Left Behind
Apocalypses here to chill my mind.

I have surveyed Dead Presidents
Washington,
Jefferson,
Lincoln
Both Roosevelts, Ted and Frank,
And Reagan
And smatterings of others...
Then hopped the bookish pond to read
Sir Winston and some others,
Not the least of whom is Gandhi G,
Taught by the Queen to free his brothers.

I have studied
Moses
Job
David
Ruth
Esther
Isaiah
Jeremiah
The Disciples
Paul
and James
(Ironically,
Though Jesus is the "Word"
He never penned one).

British poets's thoughts,
Tale tellers long-dead
Have found their way
Into my head:
Beowulf and Chaucer
Old moral plays
Shelley and Keats
Cavalier Poets
Scott and Brownings
Burns and (not) Allen
Spenser and Shakespeare
Dylan and Tolkien
Lewis and Auden
And so many more
That I leave on the floor

Western Americana I have loved
Hemingway and Steinbeck, all worth the time,
Mari Sandoz' Old Jules, and
Rolvaag's Giants in the Earth,
Keroac went on the road, while
Joseph Kinsey Howard showed us the West
Lewis & Clark in journals scribed
Their journey west and back again

I can't forget psychology
And so I will digress
Or Sigmund's accusation stays
That I have but suppressed:
Ellis, Freud, and Eric Berne,
Pavlov, Skinner, Thorndike, Watson,
Wundt, and Wm James, Piaget and Chomsky
Then Vygotsky and Bandura put a social spin
on cognitive psychology, and Everybody's in.
Diverging and Converging, psychic students, all
Could never make transaction
'Til Rogers tried to make some peace
But Ellis wouldn't have 'im.

And then, of course,
The lighter stuff,
The popcorn of the mind:
Clancy, Rankin, Carole Keene
L'Amour and Will James
Stephen King and Poe,
Cruz Smith and Leon Uris,
Grisham, Deaver, Cornwall,
Asimov, Bradbury and Herbert,
Carroll and Baum...

It's not that I'm bored with this meeting,
It's just that the food was so good.
My body is busy digesting,
And my brain is fresh out of blood.

The dessert was so rich and so tasty
That the topic seems tasteless and bland;
Perhaps our start was too hasty,
Or maybe I have a bad gland....

So if you should hear me start snoring,
Or if my head's sinking low,
Please don't think that I think it's boring;
My blood sugar's probably low.

When your children
Near berserk us;

When the maitre de
Would disapprove;

When the pastor
Stops the service

To ask your cut-ups
To stop and move,

I shrug my shoulders.
Don't grow nervous...

I buy, of course,
Though they don't deserve it....

When the ice cream vender
Tries to serve us....

Not my monkeys!
Not my circus!

It's June, 1967.
Nature, still lying through
Parsley green teeth,
Breathes the last of spring,
Hints early summer warmth,
Pre-July's cicada whine,
August's heat and wind.

Crops, still tender green
Quiver beneath a humid sky,
Under a glowing sun.

Bicycles amuse our early lust
To soar untraveled ground,
Entering lazy summer's ennui,
We scan a hawk riding drafts
On the edge of our hill.

Dust, drifting up the graveled road,
Five miles below us,
Piques our interest,
Causes the dog to raise his head.
He ***** an ear
Toward a sound we cannot hear.

We hear gravel slapping rocker panels
Before the traveler's roof rises into view,
Catch our breath as the engine slows,
Start running for the house.

A stranger's arrived,
A traveling salesman,
Better than an aunt
Only stopping in for tea
And woman talk.

Dad keeps his welding helmet down,
Repairing broken things.
The hired man inhales his cigarette,
Acts disinterested.

My memories linger on the past....

Salesmen brought the latest farming gadgets:
Additives for fuel and oil,
Battery life extenders,
Grain elevators and fencing tools,
Produce and livestock products,
Lightning rods and roofing,
Chrome-edged cultivator shovels,
Insurance for everything:
Fire, water, wind, hail.

Pitches came without exception:

"Top o' the morning! Looks like you're busy.
Don't want to take your time."

"Looks like you could use some welding rod,
And I have something new for you to try."

"Have you used chromium additive in you livestock salt?
Guaranteed to put on weight and protect from bovine
Tuberculosis!"

"Say, have you heard about the effectiveness of a new
Insecticide called DDT? I've got a sample gallon here
For you to try. Works better than Malathion!"

Dad, eventually intrigued, began the slow dance
Of dickering, haggling over this thing or that.
Most salesmen, closing in for a ****,
Hadn't grappled with my father.

At noon, deals still in the air,
My mother called the men,
And we all trudged in to wash,
Waiting in line at the tub,
Scrubbing with powdered Tide
To remove the grime and grease,
Drying on the darkening towel,
Finding a seat at the table.

The salesmen expected the meal
As though it were their right,
A standing invitation:
Stop in at noon,
Make your pitch,
Sit at table,
Close the deal after.

We boys sat and listened
To man talk.
Eyes wide, we marveled
At gadgets,
Wondered at Dad's parleying,
Winced at the deals he drove,
Commiserated with squirming salesmen
Surely made destitute by Dad's hard bargaining.

In retrospect,
I know the game was played
On two sides,
That the battery additives
Bought for five dollars a packet,
Even with the two Dad finagled free,
Cost about five dollars for everything,
Returned forty-five and change
To the smirking, full-bellied salesman
Who left a cloud of dust on his way
To supper a few miles down the road.

Around the table,
Literacy discussion turned elitist...
Bemoaning some poor Johnny,
Son of a plumber who does not read
Beyond the practical need,
And has no desire to.

I stopped to check my sense of what I had just heard...
Was transported to a prairie farm;
Thought of my Father, then in his eighties
Who felt no need and no sense of loss
For not having read Shakespeare nor Kant
For missing Milton's Paradises and Hemingway,
For by-passing Black Elk Speaks and C.S. Lewis.

Every morning, he read his Bible;
Some nights he read the mail's
Motley collection of literature:
Ads and politicians and fanatics,
Demanding money and his time,
But mostly money.

"I don't have time to read!"
He'd shout when I suggested a novel.
What literature he had was in his head,
Poems memorized when he was a boy
In a two room school, or
His own lines, written as a young man,
Describing work and friends
Long distant now, but still alive
In memory.

Dad taught me how to read
In different literacies and different texts:
Nuances of sky to read the weather -
What chill or storm or drought was on its way
("Storm's coming, boys! Let's get that hay!");
Cows and calves and bulls,
(Which one was sick or well, dry or bred);
Ways to diagnose mechanical ailments
("Start with the easiest options first");
Metals, to know which welding rod applied
("Aluminum sags, and cast iron cracks");
Grain, rolled crisp between hard hands,
(a test of ripeness);
Cement, to blend the perfect mix,
("Clean gravel/sand, no dirt, not too much water!);
Conservation,
("Always keep some grain on hand" &  
"Keep your fuel above half-tank").

So many literacies...
Dad, the Master Reader of them all...
No wonder he'd no time for books.

Cicadas whine metallically
In trees along the sweltered streets;
Wasps and hornets arc angrily
Enough to cause me fear.
Late summer’s not my favorite time of year.

Flowers nearly done;
The tulips, irises, and poppies
Long since seeded out;
They’ve had their fun.
Bedraggled day lilies remain,
This is the beginning of the mums.
Bees seek latent nectars
Or tap into their golden stores
To supplement their bumbling runs.

Lawns foist a burnt but stubborn edge
While only thistles still refuse
To bow to August's incessant heat;
Their spikes sprout poisonous defiance.
The dog’s left yellowed pools of dying grass;
I admit the neighbors’ lawns surpass.  
I suppose the time to gather
Drying excrement’s returned, alas....

Keeping up appearances is hard at summer's end.
Ennui of season full and just past ripe  
Leaves tired old men like me
A chiding cause to gripe.

I remember reading
Martin Luther King, Jr's
Letter from Birmingham Jail
Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom
Mark Twain's Huck Finn
DuBois' Souls of Black Folk,
Adichie's The Thing Around Your Neck,
Sherman Alexie's Part-time Indian tale....
For the first time

The words of Chief Joseph
Sitting Bull
Tecumseh
James Welch
and Alexie Sherman
And others of indigenous kind
Linger like arrows in my mind.

Of course, there's
Gilgamesh's forlorn quest for Enkidu;
Osiris, Amun, Ra, and Seth,
Homer's  Illiad and  Odyssey,
And Virgil's Roman treatment -
(For whom the gods destroy
We all must learn bereavement).

I remember reading
Milton's Paradises (lost and found)
And Dante's Infernal quest for Heaven
Through the bowels of Hell with Virgil's spritely guide
And up the Devil's staircase with Beatrice by his side.
John's Revelation of Times' End;
And LaHaye's money-making Left Behind,
Collin's Hunger Games and Dashner's Maze Running
Apocalypses enough to chill my mind.

I have surveyed Dead Presidents
Washington,
Jefferson,
Lincoln
Both Roosevelts, Ted and Frank,
And Reagan
And smatterings of others...
Then hopped the bookish pond to read
Sir Winston and some others,
Not the least of whom is Gandhi G,
Taught by the Queen to free his brothers.

I have studied
Moses
Job
David
Ruth
Esther
Isaiah
Jeremiah
The Disciples
Paul
and James
(Ironically,
Since Jesus is the "Word,"
Through men He penned).

British poets's thoughts,
Tale tellers long-dead
Have found their way
Into my head:
Beowulf and Chaucer
Old moral plays
Shelley and Keats
Cavalier Poets
Scott and Brownings
Burns and (not) Allen
Spenser and Shakespeare
Dylan and Tolkien
Lewis and Auden
And so many more
That I leave on the floor

Western Americana I have loved
Hemingway and Steinbeck, all worth the time,
Mari Sandoz' Old Jules, and
Rolvaag's Giants in the Earth,
Keroac went on the road, while
Joseph Kinsey Howard showed us the West
Lewis & Clark in journals scribed
Their journey west and back again

I can't forget psychology
And so I will digress
Or Sigmund's accusation stays
That I have but suppressed:
Ellis, Freud, and Eric Berne,
Pavlov, Skinner, Thorndike, Watson,
Wundt, and Wm James, Piaget and Chomsky
Then Vygotsky and Bandura put a social spin
on cognitive psychology, and Everybody's in.
Diverging and Converging, psychic students, all
Could never make transaction
'Til Rogers tried to make some peace
But Ellis wouldn't have 'im.

And then, of course,
The lighter stuff,
The popcorn of the mind:
Clancy, Rankin, Carole Keene
L'Amour  and Will James
Stephen King and Poe,
Cruz Smith and Leon Uris,
Grisham, Deaver, Cornwall,
Asimov, Bradbury and Herbert,
Carroll and Baum...

The list goes on and on, and will, I'm sure, expand beyond capacity.

Portia and Bassanio

Brave Portia's lot was cast
Inside a mocking case of lead,
Morrocco came and passed,
Then Arragorn, arrived and left, forlorn.
A list of louts came, failed, and went
Before Bassanio played his turn...
Poor rich Portia's patience spent,
Nerissa's lady solace yearned

Antonio, Bassanio, a troubled pair
A wily shark a loan arranged,
Whose bite, though small,
Beyond compare aimed deepest
To the matters of the heart.

Antonio, about to lose his fortune,
Bemoaned the losing of a friend,
The foiling of a fortune, sunk.

Shylock, certain of his pound of flesh,
Summarily dismissed by gentile gender-bending,
Played as a fool by a woman posing as a man,
Who drove a lawyer's visage in a Portia.

All ended well, at least for "Christian" men...
Life sweetened by the turning of a Jew,
No matter his conversion at duress...
Straight away Portia and Nerissa turned back
A ******* borrower who had landed on his feet,
And sprang their traps to tame their husbands' heat.

All through the night
Heartburn kept him sitting up
Stubbornly refusing
To read the signs:
Indigestion...
Heart attack...
Hiatal hernia....
Indigestion...
Hernia...
Heart attack...
Heart attack..
Heart attack.

By five, he agreed...told Mom
Baking soda wouldn't work.

His son came in from checking calves,
Worrying over the kitchen light,
Surprised to see his dad
Still sitting on the couch.

At, "I guess we could go to town,"
Son and wife moved into action.

"I need some help to dress," he said.
His helplessness filled them with dread.

First, some socks, but wait....
The nails were long, unkempt.
"I haven't been able to bend that far,"
My brother took Dad's feet in hand,
Cut the nails,
Wondering how he'd failed
To see how fragile, pale, old
This man we loved and feared
Had somehow suddenly become.

There probably wasn't time
To trim Dad's nails,
What with the heart attack,
And all.
But one should never head to town unkempt...
An old familial rule...
And one should cut one's own nails...don't even ask...
Another family rule....
And last...
Father has the last word...
The rule that kept him home all night,
Instead of calling 911.

We didn't have the pleasure of first meeting:
The get-to-know you touch of tiny hands,
The careful cradling,
The inhalation of all scents new,
The wonder of a being so tiny,
To see if we could find ourselves in you.

Never knew your sleepy sigh,
Your first smile,
The different infant cries:
Hunger, anger, fear,
Or the fidget-whimpering need for words.

Your Mother knew and told your Dad....
They held each other while you grew,
Gathering and stretching,
A silent wonder in her womb,
A sweet surprise, and wanted,
If still a little early...
Too early yet...
Better to wait and make sure....
But always you were awaited
With hopeful joy.

And then one morning,
As though you'd found a better place,
You took your leave in silence,
Left without a face or name
For us to see and know you
When we finally meet.

You need to know we mourn you,
Or perhaps we need you to know...
Regret your passing.

Strange longing this,
For a loved one we have yet to meet,
To add someone to the growing list
Of those we miss and long to see
At Jesus' feet.

----------

But Jesus said, "Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven."
Matthew 19:14

Published 9/2/13

Halfway between Malta and Saco,
Highway 2 stops a minute
To look back...

Beside the road
A little shrine waits
The traveler:
A stone, naturally shaped
To form a sleeping buffalo,
But etched with lines to emphasize
The dozing buff's back and sides
And drowsing head.

Nearby, a 1920s entrepreneur
Saw money to be made...
Set up a happenstance hotel
Beside the hot and sulf'rus spring,
And "Sleeping Buffalo" was born
To "heal" and to amuse
Odd tourists in their wandering.

Not much has changed...
The old buff sleeps,
But now inside a little pen
To keep the tourist vandals
Safely from his way.

The old resort is open still...
Same rusty pipes and yellowed walls
And rusty water
Warm enough to stain
Unlucky bathing suits.
(The smell's enough to force
The bather to the bath as medicine....)

On my way to other places
I have stopped along the road
To meditate beside the old stone bull...

I understand, a little,
Now that I am growing old,
Tobacco offerings left
Beside the sleeping stone.
Though not a Pagan,
I can feel the distant Ways
Before our Western ways
Made tourists of us all.

Dad didn't want a coffin.
"Cremate my last remains,"
And so we did.
Cool and dry,
His ashes, urned,
Lie beneath the sod
And prairie sky
Waiting some clarion call,
Some trill of hope,
Bright, re-constitutional,
Faith-affirming.

Mother's wishes rise before us:
No crematory,
No embalmer.
Just her blanket,
Just a hole
Dug beside our Dad.

The law would let her wish be true,
But her children won't.
We're searching coffin plans.
Reverently grim,
Lovingly deferential,
Dutifully rebellious,
Solemn this journey be.

Pine boards to honor her thrift
But smooth and tight,
Rope handles, fitted lid,
Perhaps a little trim,
Perhaps a sheaf of wheat carved
For the old farmer she was.

We'll bury her,
Wrapped in her blanket,
Tucked securely in pine
Beside my father's ashes.

Like a grain of wheat she'll lie
Silent in her final say
Inside our final say
Waiting Resurrection Day.

Surprise me!
A sink,
A toilet,
A shower,
A plastic can to leave soiled paper
A cup to pour water
On my sweaty self...
I am eight again,
Homesick at summer camp,
Stuck powerless in time.

A gray hippopotamus lived in a zoo
At the end of the Tropical Line,
Harry the Hippo lived next to the loo
Right by the Northern confines.
With his wide toothy smile,
And his great double chin,
He greeted his neighbors
With a great hippo grin...
Made friends with the deer,
Made friends with an owl,
Avoided the white scowling bear,
Avoided the family of wolves,
(He'd heard they liked to eat meat).
Decided to friend a great, walloping moose,
A challenge, his neighbor seemed rather elite.
Tall and severe with a beard on his chin,
He stood like a tree on his heavy brown hooves,
And branches of antlers stood heavy and grim.

"I see we are neighbors,"said Harry the Hippo,
"Name's Harry," he said with a grin,
"Since it looks like we'll be here a while, ya' know,
I figure we ought to be friends!"

"Bull" Moose only chewed a bit more on his cud,
Burped in the gray hippo's face,
Turned his wide antlers for well and for good...
He spurned the whole hippo race.

But Harry had patience,
Had nowhere to go,
So he waited a week and a month and a day
For Otto the Moose to come 'round,
And he did! And now the two of 'em play.

Our Harry's advice to you is be nice,
And after a while, it comes true....
The balkiest neighbors will have to think twice
And fall into friendship with you.

(0=

So many years,
These hands, now old,
Have worked at the table,
kneading and rolling dough,
Testing texture,
Adding raisins,
Walnuts,
Sugar,
Sprinkling cinnamon.

Warming the oven,
Waiting for the dough
To rise,
Sliding trays onto hot racks,
Marking time....

She sits on her walker's chair
Looks up into the camera
"Oh, don't take my picture!"
But how can we not?
Adding these images
To the memories,
To the moment.

The scent of baking bread,
Cinnamon,
Raisins,
Fills the room,
With 40 years' remembering...
Time stops,
Time reverses.

The ones who stopped in...
Dad,
Brother,
Sister,
Gram,
Hired Men,
Grandchildren,
Neighbors passing by...
Some now long gone...
After all, they were
Only stopping in...

"To grab a bite"
On their way to the barn,
On their way by the farm,
On their way to fields,
On their way to the phone,
On their way to town...,
But really to stop
For cinnamon, raisins, walnuts
Twisted into fresh, hot bread,
And a cool glass of milk.

Black dress,
Black lace shawl,
Red cherry violin,
Black frets and strings,
Black bow, white mane or tail,
Tensely poised
To move along the strings
In dances sensuously slow,
Tantalizing strings
To vibrations sublime,
Singing listeners to sway
Eyes closed, adrift, in
Streaming consciousness.

Other movements quick and sharp,
Impossible for any heavy-wielded harp,
Dancing pirouettes of sound,
Jetting needles sharp,
Then  reeling tremulous...
These caterwaulings of a horse's tail
Held tautly on a stick.

A deaf man here beside me,
Only seeing, reads about
The music that I hearing, feel...
Somehow feels the Muse,
Sways to the dancing bow.

When ranchers decide to do a thing,
Sometimes they just go through it.
What follows is a little fling
A neighbor did...don't do it.

The clearing of the land requires a little fortitude
Some ingenuity, and luck, and not a little courage.
So A.D. Volbrecht's story, though a little crude,
Is only strange to those who eat milk toast and porridge.

Rather than tear an old house down to clear a farming space,
A.D. enlisted help from his oldest son to haul the thing away.
Together then, the two grown men took on a moving race
To see if they could jack the house and move it in one day.

The morning saw a Donahue, low slung and meant to haul,
Waiting as the house was raised, (unsteady on new legs)
Then slowly lowered down again. T'would make a feller bawl
To see the old home place prepare to pack its bags.

Son Zane began a steady pull to move the old house home,
And A.D. took his place in front, flashers and flags to warn.
Slow going was their pace, and traffic stopped up some;
The actual move was tougher than the plan they'd formed.

So seven miles became a half a day, and challenges arose
How ever would they move the thing through town?
The power lines and traffic cops were obstacles; who knows
What kinds of tickets they'd be writing down?

Up ahead the airport gleamed, the tarmac shimmered black.
"Aha!" old A.D. cried, "I've found the way around!"
Hard left he turned on a county road, and cut the fence in back
And guided Zane and the old home shack to airport ground.

Western Airways flight was due sometime that afternoon;
Old AD rattled on up Runway One, old pickup running fast,
To find a gate to let the old house through, (and none too soon);
The tractor and its load sputtered through the parking lot at last.

In June a few years back, a farmer and his son pulled off a heist.
Stole some runway time and cut their journey short...
No harm done, though they'd never do it twice
Without winding up defenseless in the county court.

Burns Creek
Climbing Chimney Rock.
Dad and David Scoville
In their mid 30s,
Two men out to prove
Their bravery,
Their derring-do.

Nervous,
My Mother,
My brother and I,
Five and six,
Necks craning,
Wait and watch;
Dad moves up and up
Clings to the top.

Inept and six,
I stand below,
Admiring my Father's
Fearlessness.

I am nearly blind,
The myopic, thick-lensed gawker,
Peering upward.

The men climb down,
Victorious,
The day’s challenges
Vanquished.

Heading home,
Choking dust.
Old land,
Deep ravines,
Rattle snake domain.

My father's old Ford
Bumps over red scoria,
Billows burning dust.

Ancient land,
Cindered clay,
Open grazing land,
Dry and hot.

Memories churn
From sixty years ago.

Around the table, literacy discussion
Turns elitist...
Bemoaning some poor Johnny,
Son of a plumber who does not read
Beyond the practical need,
And has no desire to.

I stop to check my sense of what I have just heard...
Am transported back to a prairie farm
And think of my Father, now in his eighties
Who still feels no need and no sense of loss
For not having read Shakespeare or Kant
For missing Milton's Paradises and Hemingway,
For by-passing Black Elk Speaks and C.S. Lewis.

Every morning, he reads his Bible;
Some nights he reads the mail's
Motley collection of literature:
Ads and politicians and fanatics,
Demanding money and his time,
But mostly money.

"I don't have time to read!"
He shouts, when I suggest a novel.
What literature he has is in his head,
Poems memorized when he was a boy
In a two room school, or
His own lines, written as a young man,
Describing work and friends
Long distant now, but still alive
In memory.

Dad taught me how to read
In different literacies and different texts:
Nuances of sky to read the weather -
What chill or storm or drought was on its way;
Cows and calves and bulls -
Which one was sick or well, dry or bred;
Equipment to diagnose mechanical ailments;
Metals to know which welding rod applied;
Grain, rolled crisp between his hands, a test of ripeness...
Cement to find the perfect mix,
So many literacies...
Dad, the Master Reader of them all...
No wonder he'd no time for books.

How many times I lay
On that old couch
Just through the doorway
Where she shuffled from the table to the stove
Bringing food to dad,
In for supper late,
Or moving dishes to the sink
While I rested from the day,
Just lying there,
Unaware of conversations
I was soaking in.

"I should have sold the winter wheat
A week ago.
No telling how far down the price will go
Now that Russia's stopped our sales."

"Pizza, two for seven dollars again;
Apples three pounds for a dollar;
Bread for seventy-nine."

Or heard his offhand orders for next morning:
"Fencing's got to be done at Henry's.
Boys! I need one of you to check the pastures.
Take some salt and mineral along!"

Mother seldom spoke, or if she did,
She gave correction,
Reported pizza inventories, or bread.
Asked clarifying questions,
But always the creaking oven door
Or the running of rinsing water.

I awoke this morning at three,
Almost a year after my fathers death
From a restless dream of lying there.

Heard my mother's sounds,
My father's voice,
Life as once it was,
Mundane and wonderful
From the couch around the corner of the door:
A living memory
I would no more expunge
Than to remove my own name.

In a dream state,
Attentive now to sounds
Grown too late significant,
Too late sweet,
Almost too painful now,
I lay,
Half aware or half awake...
Thankful to live a memory so real,
Unaware I was transfixed
Inside a memory
Moving lightning speed
Through dreams....

As he was readying to leave,
Perhaps to go down to do one last chore,
I heard my father's footstep at the door.

"Dad, I wanted you to know
I love you very much!"
I spoke the words,
Loudly, so he heard.

I heard him clear his throat,
Say something about getting back to work.

And I awoke, a full day's drive away
From that old couch,
Itself five miles up the hill
From the buried urn where his cold ashes lie.

Your old brown chair sits waiting for you
Here behind me as I write, thirty years after your death.

You, the quiet bachelor with the twinkling eyes
Smoking pipe and soft French voice.
Always Charlie’s second,
A good mechanic, but a better blacksmith.

When the police said you couldn’t drive anymore,
You went home and died of sadness.
Unable to leave home, you stayed.

I still remember the day
The ambulance screamed southward
As I played on Grandpa’s lawn.

It was you on your way out,
Going in style.

Published July 09, 20

Lady Winter

I.
When surly Winter sighs, her icy breath
Makes adults think of coming death,
Makes children think of falling snow,
Ice skates and sleds and away they go....

II.
Alone among her Sisters, Winter holds such power
To stop the World, to drift in Time, if only for her hour.
She puts the trees and fields to sleep,
Then covers lakes and land 'neath sheets,
And though she tucks them into bed,
Their sleeping form is of the dead.

III.
This Lady White whose frigid face
Turns from the sun with chilly grace
Has for herself a single duty:
The world to rest in icy beauty.
In the North, where'er she goes,
She dresses lands with icy snows.
In gowns of ermine stand the trees
White trains of down lie at their lees.
She sets the plain with crystal lakes,
And sugars hills with frosted flakes.
Where ever she in beauty goes,
The icy Queen her magic sows.

IV.
Strange sister of four Seasons,
Her face, at first, seems set in Death,
But we who walk out on her icy grounds,
Traverse a frozen pond or wander rounds
Deep into her forests fast asleep, know well,
We who stop to listen and to look can tell,
Life's certitude awaits the end of chilly Winter's icy fling.
(Congregation: "Even so come quickly, Lady Spring!")

What the Fisherman said:
"It seemed like a good idea."

What he did:
Went fishing in a rowboat
Out on the Sound
About a mile out
And seagulls all around.

What happened:
Seagulls came about
To see
If scavenge work
Was to be done.
Dipping in and out
And just above,
One had some fun.

Fisherman annoyed...
One plucky bird
Came close above his head
And closer,
'Til finally the fisher said,
"I think I could just
Reach right up
And grab his legs!"
And so he did....

Seagull's Reply:
Seagulls, shocked,
Regurgitate,
Explode,
Expectorate
Whatever they've been
Carrying inside.

Instead of Fight or Flight,
Seagulls puke;
They have no pride.
At least this one did
Not.

Fisherman's Response:
He didn't even know
When he let go...
First the gull,
And then his lunch.

The man and the bird shared
Something in common
Out on the Sound:
They met for lunch
And went away hungry.

Sitting early at McDonalds over a dollar cup,
I join a gathering of days...no longer years...
Whose better days are nearly up
Alone, or nearly so, they gather here.

Greetings gruff or none belie camaraderie;
They wait until each man has joined the crew,
Half-hearted views of the morning news,
Wonder of a friend who's feeling blue.

I cannot hold myself away from finding me
A few years up this downward road,
Waiting with the men I've come to see...
A weary lot to meet and think of growing old.

Same old drudgery,
Papers fresh for grading;
Topics, seldom new,
If honestly presented,
At least encourage worth
In form, in format, in tradition.

Plagiarism creeps up,
Always shocking,
The unauthorized changing
Of voice, of tone, of diction,
Not unlike the sting of a ruthless needle,
The drip of a hollowed, poisoned fang,
The bite of frost, burning a tender cheek...
Sadly familiar, this strident pang.

All hope is lost.

Anger sets in,
Trust wilts,
Hope fades gray.

In plagiarism, the fool's truth lies;
To belie one's honor is to watch it die.

King Minos,
Spited by the God of Oceans,
Hesitated but a while
Before poor Pasiphae's bull-headed son
Was penned inside the labyrinth,
And then, as if to throw away the key,
Inventor Daedalus and his dear son
Were for their work a prison tower fee'd.
But they grew wings, for as we know,
An inventor's work is never done...
If only Icarus had listened
And kept a proper place below the sun,
Breugel's painting would have lost
Its distant splashy focal point;
The plowman and the shepherd would
Have stood alone above a perfect sea.

Old Minos never had a chance,
And though the cunning Hunter,
(He, who found the man who
Made a string crawl curving
Through a shell behind an ant),
Had won... decided to disrobe
And take a dip...a foolish act
To choose when Daedalus
Would serve a hot revenge.

Daedalus, who knew the score,
Burned wood to make the water soar;
In vengeance vented spiteful wrath,
And cooked old Minos in his bath.

Gertrude

Caught in my *** and in my gender,
Out a king and husband,
Without time to seek a lover;
A son to preserve
His chance at the Line....

What could I do but marry?

He has left me now,
Shaking in my chamber.
A blood streaked line
follows Polonius'
Ignominious retreat
From behind the tapestry
In Hamlet's tow.

What could I do but marry?

I look anew at the two portraits
Chained side by side,
Husbands One and Two;
Re-live young Hamlet's scorning words
And wondering, shudder.

What could I do but marry?

Comes Claudius roaring
To my rooms, his eyes ablaze
My answers tremble, filled with doubt
Of Hamlet's sanity.
New- eyed, I see
The hatred in the King
And fear.

What could I do but marry?

A fluff of feathers
Black and white,
Hide the scrawny scavenger
Whose "Rick, Rick, Rick!"
Identify some place of death,
This careful bandit's visiting.

He leaves outright robbery
To his cousin jay,
And flits,
One disaster to the next,
To see how he may capitalize.

Dead carrion, his usual fodder...
Yet one subzero winter day
I saw a magpie perched
Upon a shivering cow
Belly deep in snow, and
Chilled in minus 30 air,
Peck-scratching through a healing scab
And pulling living flesh away.

Uncle Joe,
Quietly a bachelor,
All his 77 years,
Never spoke an unkind word
I ever heard.

Most afternoons,
He sat in his brown chair
Behind my Grandfather.

Two old French men,
Smoking pipes
Talking slow and low
In English, French-laced,
Laden with Quebec enunciation
Though they'd not been back
For sixty years.

I didn't think he'd ever loved a girl,
My Uncle Joe,
And then his nephew spilled the beans
One day to me.

Alice was the damsel's name,
But innocence was not her style,
And so my great-grandma,
Memere, disapproved,
Clucked her tongue,
Hands on hips,
Glared and crossed herself,
Whenever Alice came around.

Still, Joe pursued
Until the day she walked out
To the field where he was plowing
Behind a team of horses.

She didn't think ahead.
So when her dress billowed out
As she walked up,
She set the team in fright.

Uncle Joe,
Too shocked to act,
Fell feet first into the foot board,
And down the field the horses dragged
The plow and Uncle Joe.

They stopped before disaster came,
And Uncle Joe crawled out.

When he stood up,
He ended any chance that Alice
Had with him.

"Dat **** girl near got me ****!"
His exclamation.

So it was
He lived sixty more years
Safely and alone.

Three Nails (...)
Not so many as to denounce
A job done to make me well.
Three rudimentary spikes to nail
A man's own flesh to wood.
Three nails cannot
Seem so much to proffer;
Human efforts complementing
God's sacrificial offer.

A self-inflicted crucifixion?
Yes, I would do my part;
Would do me good, I think,
To offer up an offering to God.

So let this painful work,
Human endeavoring,
Perfection capturing,
Begin.

A simple thing, I think,
To hoist and hammer
Nails into myself,
A manly job to undertake
Impaling self
To spare my God
A little work.

The first, perhaps
Most painful...
To stop the feet
Their wandering ways,
To give me pause for just a bit
To meditate in pain
And to reflect or to project
Myself in better ways.

                  .

Then on to nail number two,
One hand to hold the nail
And one the hammer.
The pain intense
Impacts my good intent.

                       .

And yet, I've nailed number two,
And finding where the problem lies,
I have no way to nail thrice.

My living flesh begins to writhe
Its will-ward way,
E'en though in sky-ward
Agony my soul now wails.

Then I remember
Someone said,
"Your crucifixion stands
Upon a different hill,
Hangs on a different tree."

                   . . .
Though I can never end my flesh,
He paid my debt for me.

Thrift Shop Confessional

Old carts squeak down re-sale aisles
"One of," "two of,"
Sometimes "three of" items
Tempting treasure-sifting shoppers,
Bargain-needing families,
Women seeking up-brand names at low-brand prices...
Our wives, followed by their husbands,
Acquiescent, but quiescently seeking
Seeking a thrift shop oasis.

A cast-off dining set beckons,
Sturdy enough, if a little battered,
To make us solemnly content to wait
Carted clothing trundling
Off to fitting rooms.


He shuffled up with a foolish grin.
"I think I'll join this convocation of
Waiting gentlemen.
My wife is a shopper...
She'll close the place down."

I moved a chair and gave some space;
Strangers become brothers in this place.

Five minutes on,
I knew he was a vet:
Army, Vietnam Nam...
"I don't like to think about it,"
Cleared his throat,
"Never can forget."

I turned to look at him.

"A little girl came running,
With her hand behind her back.
She only stood this high," he said,
And showed me with his palm her height,
"They carried grenades that way...
All of 'em...couldn't tell which ones...
Sergeant told us, 'Don't ever check...just shoot.'"

The voice trailed off....

I sat sweating in a thrift store,
Captive of my own politeness,
Half a century,
Half a planet,
Transported in his words
into a soldier's Hell.

"So I shot...
Nothing else to do."

Silence then.

A total stranger staggering
under the weight of having
Murdered his Albatross....
Of having carried this thing,
This memory,
Inside him all these years,
Of finding me,
The unsuspecting thrift shop guest
Who'd listen to his lonely tale,
Perhaps so he could earn some rest....

I, his unwitting Confessor,
Uncertain what to say,
Certain something must be said...
Certain nothing could be said...
Sat dumb, but understanding
The wisdom of confessional dividers,
The private comfort of two booths
Where prayerful exchanges
Intersperse uncertain silences,
Present in the overhanging need:
Demanding sorrowful returns,
Impending memories of sorrows...
And lonely trudgings home....



(Connections with Fr. Laurence's "Riddling confession finds but short shrift," in Romeo & Juliet, and Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner")

Tottering across her farmhouse floor,
Fixing breakfast,
Baking muffins,
Frying liver and onions,
Caring for her "boys";

Sitting on her purple walking chair,
Asking how the cattle are,
And what I'm going out today to do;
She's crippled up, but she's not through.

She barely has the "oomph" these days
To lift her legs into the truck,
Her body hunched over,
Head barely at the window level,
To ride to town to see the doctor
Or go to church and wait
While I shop and run my errands,
Before we head back home again.

Things move slowly now as time grows short;
The walker crawls across the floor;
Simple tasks become her tedious chores,
But still she cooks and cleans between short naps.
She worries more, but I have watched her praying,
Sitting by her bed, hair up in a cap,
Squinting hard to read her Bible,
Lips moving as she goes to prayer...
My name and many others whispered there.

Pecking through rubble
Picking remnants
Clearing spaces
Planting new
Breathing fresh air
Opening a path through
Memory and Remorse
To Peace.

He slid his arm around
The coolness
Of disdain,
Felt the distance
Of an Arctic plain,

Rested his hand
Upon an alabaster
Thigh,
Saw eternal haughtiness
In stony eyes.

Human heart
Has he;
She
Heart of stone.

To tempt a man
To be so close,
But always so alone.

We've set a precedent:
Traded Bergdahl for five Terrorists...
The deal is done.

Questions hovering above and below...
How many loyal lives were lost
To bring a lone deserter back?

How many lives will go because
Five terrorists walked free?

Did Bergdahl set up the deal
To set a precedent
To set up a President?
Were the five men picked to trade
By Us or Them?
Who's running the show?
Who's to blame?
And Whom shall we say is calling
The shots, and who can say
How many lives were paid
For one who just deserts?

Incoming!

Straying wayward, walking home,
I left the narrow path and wandered off alone
Just past the trees along the edge and up a dusty hill;
I found a cave there hollowed and felt a sudden chill.

Down through the dirt and leaves I crawled into the cave
To see if there were pleasure there to make me crave.
I caught a scent of danger, almost a living thing,
But as I backed up quickly, I touched a leather wing.

Upward rose a serpent head; tiny eyes glowed red
My backing self was scooting now, and I was filled with dread.
"My friend! You've nothing here to fear!"
"I'm just a little dragon, not even fifty years."

Into sunshine came he then, less fearsome in the light
To bring me pause from tumbling off in fright.
An hour later, carried on my back,
I took a baby dragon home, hidden in my pack.

"If you don't mind, I'll need to hide," my new friend said.
"I'll stay here in your closet, and I'll sleep beneath your bed."

Soon our friendship blossomed as secrets often do,
I'd off to school each morning, then run right back at two
To meet my baby dragon and get to know him more,
Still hidden from my family behind my bedroom door.

One day while I was off to school, I heard the siren sound.
Smoke rose above the treeline on my family's side of town.
When I arrived, my home was ash; my fiery friend was gone.
Now I know that little dragons grow to burn us down.

I drove 150 miles round trip
To hear a friend preach
And see him baptize an infant
This morning.

My friend preached on the Father's love
For the prodigal son...
Said, "The father loves those outside the fold
Every bit as much as those inside the fold!"
Made me remember that the Good Shepherd
Hunted far and near to bring the one lost sheep
Back to the other ninety-nine.

I thought, statistically speaking,
The Good Shepherd leaves no sheep behind,
(A hundred percent salvific rate
I'd call it... Pretty good odds for even
A dumb sheep like me...).

After the ceremony,
Lunching at the family's house,
The older brother of the baptized boy
Looked up at me,
Cake in his mouth,
And asked,"Are you Jesus?"

Took me quite by surprise,
But smiling,
I said, "No, I'm not Jesus!"
He asked, "Where is Jesus?"
His grandfather said,
"He's here!"
Pointing to the little guy's chest.

A little while later,
When his mom sat next to him,
He pointed to his chest,
"Jesus lives in here!"

Sunday sermons...
One in a church,
One in a garage...
I heard two today.
------------------
Matthew 19:14 Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."

The Autumn missal has arrived,
A fall reminder of the coming cold,
Strange slanting light to shift the maple
Greens to furious red and gold.

High above the myriad travelers chant adieu,
As on their sky-road paths they sing,
A chorus glorious to southern waters blue
Where winter marshes serve a warm retreat.

A liturgy of highest order drives the world
Beyond the ken of time-old cycles round;
Hibernal instinct now in feral life unfurls:
Flogs squirrels outward on their oak-corn bounds,
Plushes wealth of wolves' warm winter fur,
Hardens bone and antler, deepens feathered down,
Adds harvest fat to beast and fish and fowl,
Drives sap below old Frost's attempt to burrow down.

_____
Unspoken paen unheard by almost all,
A careless shivering passerby may dread
This ritual changing of the Fall,
But never mind, the liturgy is read,
And Nature safely tucks herself into her wintery bed.

Living under the watchful ticking,
Your "Regulator" clock kept time;
Mercantile calendar days running down.

I never knew you to complain
A day in all your life.

Art Pribnow married you,
Removed you to a little place
West of the Yellowstone River
To farm and set the world in order.

Probably the sun
Checked his schedule
Right over head by seeing laundry
Hanging in straight strung rows
Beside the sharp white buildings,
No stone out of its place.

Only Order
Everywhere, but...
I wonder sometimes.

Alight me Paddies! Today the world is Green;
I am in a mood, alas, to gnaw crubeen,
To kiss my Irish lass, and cuddle her awhile,
To hear the Irish Rovers sing their bonny Isle,
To wear a shamrock, laboring o'er a stout:
Murphy or Guinness, to me it matters naught.

Outside, but not so far away,
Missiles are falling;
Early snow has settled
Beneath gray overcast....
Sirens in the distance
Send their low moan
Across the miles...
Echo faintly in our canyon.

Too cold for lightning,
We turn away from light
Flickering or flashing
Upon the bellied skies...
Don't want to think
About the thundering
The light implies.

Muffled sound and muted light
Confirm our living
Away from town.
Perhaps we are
Far enough....
These days, though,
Places to run are few,
And war is moving out.

At least the news has stopped....
Was sporadic
Then...
Stopped altogether
Now.
Almost a relief....

The coal oil lamp -
Her mother's mother's -
Burns a reddish glow...
Diesel's charring smudge...
Comforts us
In a growing dark.

Roast potatoes,
Rabbit stew,
Pickled beets...
No bread this time
As I uncork chokecherry wine...

And it is summer 1999....
We are standing in tall grass
Somewhere between Red Lodge
And Laurel along the road,
Ice cream pails echoing
With plopping chokecherries
Near black and hanging thick
Like miniature clusters of grapes.

We are there to beat the birds and bears,
Knowing choke-cherrying
Is the hurried work of many races,
Some wearing claws upon their heavy hands,
Others flitting in with beaks upon their faces.

And then the kitchen smells of cherries boiling down
For syrups and for jam,
The old ten gallon glass fermenting juice and sugar,
Stands waiting in the corner,
Later to be filtered off and corked away
In twice-used bottles....

Other years and other picking times
Lie bottled  in wooden racks below,
But we have chokecherry wine tonight,
While storms we never thought we'd know
Blow hard against the world.