Growing Hazelnuts in the Pacific Northwest
(a conversation between two coastal poets)
we periodic update each other by
email or poetry...writers choice
~~~
my turn but
not an easy poem to commence,
for its eminent domain fraught
with relative comparisons favoring one side,
emphasizing the differences that life prefers to offer
a magnetic choice,
attract or repel
a language conundrum
an iron-strong irony that the poem's ending,
its commencement, its ceremonial completion,
far easier for me to forecast before the real work initiated
<•>
commanded by you to write of me and mine,
with detailed, careful accuracy
as if it were a poem!
So Why Not a Poem Then?**
my hasty notes emailed upon my current status
you dislike for they are both brief and oblique,
poorly scripted, yet generous
with typological confusion, writing in this genre of
self-evaluation always is concluded by me as:
devolving into either boring, pompous or delusional aggrandizement or the final infinity-indignity of
mealy mouth whining
so an updated poem will be writ,
the happenings of my life have not changed greatly,
the struggle to earn daily bread that supports a familial universe, grows more difficult as demand for buggy whips drops even more ferociously with the onset of miracle
self-driving cars
your son fights fires, commands the earned allegiance of men who fight that which threatens the survival of others life and limb, mine, fights for the his daily bread which is only equivalent in its mind numbing insidious mental exhaustion
I make no judgements or place any emphasis erroneous
the California fire, your sons volunteered absence,
leaves living holes in your family to be filled,
and the burden shifts with the Oregon wind, northward,
upon your old-er tired-er shoulders,
a somewhat similar etching on my body
carved in Eastern Standard Time worry lines
reading between the lines of your concerns,
read of all the plans in process,
feel the cares and concerns that lself-sacrifice impose,
among them the 75 acres of hazelnuts harvest ready
that need his missing hands to do the harvesting work
which makes my daily shifting of financial instruments
seem very, very, petite bourgeoisie
I have studied in some detail the minutiae of hazelnut harvesting methodologies which makes me into another
east coast expert poet - confident in his opinions validity,
tho devoid of any hands-on experience and would not recognize a hazelnut from the ones (nuts) floating in my head
well, here must also admit into evidence that every potted plant or tree I ever purchased in the Flower District (West 30's) died. ignominiously. that a delicious word deserved of being spoken aloud for the
accuracy of its sounds
as predicted ending this poem, far, far easier than the writing
we cross pollinate each others lives; selfishly think, nay,
convinced, each, I am the possessor of the better half of the deal, for me the loving of your ordinary of soil and ash,
*** wee football, the honest labor of building things
is getting an honors degree in sharing
though,
though worrying about our children
seems to be deemed a bi-coastal commonality
perhaps the Yankees will win tonite, (nope)
perhaps the Giants will upend the Seahawks tomorrow, (nah)
items of passing interest that will soon pass,
for your real serious worries are
combulated confabulated and combusted with mine,
what is yours - now mine shared
this intersection happens when two poets from opposite ends of these united states cross pollinate via manly hugs,
75 acres of friendship that need harvesting,
and the earned respect of insight into our singular
psyche so rich-earth deserved
with manly hugs and respect
your friend the n-man
Oct 20-22, 2017
~~~
3:31am