The Work of Hunters

—from a line in Frost's The Mending Wall

 The work of hunters is never done they like to think
and thinking's never ending with their pursuits in mind
talking to older ones now reduced to staying home
weeding their small patch of greens
ones who see change a long way off
maybe pre-plantation days maybe ancient
family understandings and ways to read the signs
all creatures having their respective languages
roads they travel habits that can't be broken
habits that surprise us when they shift their
patterns the way pigs will fool you coming
at dawn one morning and dusk the next day
midst full moon one night or the rising of it
the next even a thin curved smile of a moon
some say will bring what's called the game
where do they sleep?
oh that will change with these nomadic types
where eat? well just look next time
and see how well they turn the soil
where it's good and wet
they're not after your prized roots
but those might pay
for a night of hunting worms
the hunter and the hunted changing roles you see
and here's a question why is it
we call hunters on the land by that name
but on the sea or shore it's fishermen
can you tell me that?
aren't they hunting
with their nets, spears, hooks and depth
finders, their maps on paper and too
those maps we can't see
like all hunters' stories told and held in the
constellations of their minds where it's
so dark only their grandfather's words
can guide them

The Deepening—for Todd

Layer upon layer sunrise and crackle
in that place between radio stations
smoke inversions early frosts or late
snows stealing almond blossoms from us
well we might ask is it we who change
or the haze coming over the world
with each new invention child eyes
seeing one part of the spectrum
the one we reserve for nostalgia
and by the time we turn around
the town doesn't recognize us like it used to
but the coffee shops improve with our aging
who is it exactly that changes certainly
we took note of the phenomenon called entropy
took note and threw it out cleared off the tables
sure the traffic calls out in a different key
an octave far below the familiar dogs
known to sleep through such vibrations
people in caves might notice a shift
that's how fleeting this life how thin the curtains
see how the breeze takes the fabric
and bends it to another older will
that's both out there and in here
where we know there's more than 5 senses
the other hand too the toes
no more counting
keep your geological grumblings
leave me with my ditch dirt
my glazes my pottery
all accidents born in the kiln

After Elizabeth Bishop's The Fish

Like ancient wallpaper peeling at the corners
pulling with it the patterns before it revealing
plaster in crumbs and crusted states and before that
the lath behind all, the ribcage itself hiding behind
what we thought was the true wall
that's how it went the time we spent in the old cottage
when the light would die and other older lights
would smoke up the corners of our eyes
and remind us that we weren't alone other souls
inheriting their place in history the unrecorded
stories the unnamed the voices
only a faint echo making us turn once or twice
to see who's there? Did you say something?
Did you hear that? To the point that we began
to wonder if we were merely finishing
someone else's sentences
left to wonder who will finish ours
as we recede into the dark
it's all around us now an emptiness
without structure without end
an entering and entering
always straining to hear

Gossamer

I don't know why but when I was a kid
it came to me in solitude alone away
from games and others the way we skated
over the world chasing and touching
hiding laughing skinning our knees
breaking the fabric that covered us
protected us then no it came to me

by myself the garden weedstalks
pebbles stones the whirring of winged
creatures shadows damp places
beneath or behind thorns the slow
movement of the brown hairy caterpillar
the mystery shrinking expanding
coming down from trees by summer's end
something lost more found others
released blown away like dandelion
seeds and it seems my quiet discoveries
made their gossamer way to you
I can see it in your eyes

The Head of Cabbage

The cabbage stared. Was that an iceberg lettuce over there on the other side of the cutting board—otherwise known as the chopping block? It was weird looking at your own green and leafy reflection in a knife blade the size of a hubcap—not that cabbages know much about cars. Now kings, on the other hand. Royalty and cabbage go a long way back.

I'll never forget my grandfather standing at the gate, the limp rabbit's hind legs caught up in one hand, its head and once-alert ears hung long, I reckon denied that last look at the cherished ground that provided shelter. No more the dark of the tunnels! Meanwhile, there nestled in grandad's other arm was a fine head of cabbage—also denied the rabbit—not your pale grocery section version but a deep rich green squeaky, tightly wrapping against itself head—no eyes there—no sight for the master of the vegetable world. Tight-lipped across the field and through the last gate home, the four of us stepped carefully.

The Perfect Cut

There at the keen edge her eyes
split with nowhere to look
but either side when all along
it's the space between enticing her
that place of emptiness that fills
with her concentration and skill
as she brings her well-honed steel
into the decision to change beech
oak maple walnut doug fir or
mesquite into beams walls
windows openings closings floors
ceilings knowing full well how
taking away creates a full house
although few will ever know how
precision and exactitude
calibrate themselves in the heart
of the carpenter named Katie

Her Mirrors

Her mirrors know her witnesses
in that confluence of ghostly presences
and the two dimensional wall
of her perceptions

her book markers
know her collection of thumb prints
the well-read coterie of borrowers and
lenders the never-returned perusers

her windows understand only the sunset
the cheerful bruising of each day's fruitfall

the floor of her house the soles of all those
who passeth misunderstanding how they
came and went the vendors and the venters
only the former friendly enough to win her smile

her earrings the dancing moments fit within
the circles she so tightly drew
a nodding of the head
a shaking of disbelief
a rare laughter and the suffocating press
of the telephone with no way out
and there
there upon the old wall pictures of a life
not hers a child an aunt mysteriously
ensconced in Minnesota
the rest utter strangers