All in town go by water
and talk with the water, desire
to be water: a dress of ten thousand hands.
The water received the water
and they made a great deal of joy to see one another.
I left off my great skirt
and went to sell a horse
for a dish of herrings.
I went by water to my father’s country,
crew buttery as lard, paper ship
to transport me and my tired work.
All the while i sat watching the rocks, a spider was right behind me mending her web, knowing i offered protection from the birds. You’re never as alone as you think. I hear water trickling underground, remember that fateful drink and grin. It’s not so lonesome i could cry. And when i do, it’s just to talk back to coyotes, or that family of barred owls who hoot like chimpanzees. When the sun goes down, the hollow turns strange. Jumping mice dance in the moonlight. A whippoorwill clears his throat three times before he launches into his diatribe. Corpses of trees glow with foxfire and flying squirrels whistle high and thin like ghosts—whose ghosts, one can never be sure. Once i found a green stone that had been worked, given an edge that could still scrape a hide. It fit so easily into my hand. It took all my willpower to put it back into its hole. The original owner might not be done with it yet.
box turtle
dignified despite the mushroom
on his chin
far pasture
the slow rearrangement
of cows
watering hole
the sky’s reflection in each
deep hoof print
whispering against
the road from both sides
endless water
backhoe toothmarks
our complicated relationship
with the mountain
gabion wall
the quarried stones softening
with moss at last
a beech log’s pale skin
beginning to rupture
that rich ferment
spring house
still keeping the milk-
snakes cool
the view from my childhood
bedroom window
I live in it now
that walnut sprout
we tried to kill with a frisbee
eating in its shade
cattails
overwhelmed by tearthumb
the purpose-driven life
water standing
in a raccoon footprint
from here
Plummer’s Hollow Run
deer fence
a sudden understory
of shrubs and forbs
protected from deer
for nearly two decades now
this plot thickens
Smilax
they say her thorniness drove a man
wildflowery
autumn equinox
a mosquito takes its first steps
walking on water
where water sits
at the head of the hollow
a bench for reflection
the not-rightness of it
this vernal pool collecting
autumn leaves
ecdysis
empty husks of former lives
sink into the mud
dancing out of fear
is a great disorder
water going out with the tide
green and cold as old meat
we danced and broke
to be less like God
Pain with pain,
water into water:
I have so much wine
I water myself
and hew me a lodging
in a dark bed.
that one English word
in Philippine news reports about Guiuan
where Magellan landed in 1521
where the Americans made their first beachhead in World War II
in the swirl of Tagalog I don’t understand
that word keeps floating to the surface
landfall
where floors shook
where roofs blew off
where concrete columns toppled
where wind gusts reached 195 miles per hour
where a 13-foot wall of water swept ashore
landfall
where the eye took a brief calm
sightless look & moved on
where a stone church was flattened
The blue plastic eyecup
of my mote-ridden boyhood
still sits on the top shelf
behind the bathroom mirror,
at eye-level now.
I remember how good
cool tap water felt
after the hot tears,
tilting my head all
the way back & willing
my eyelid to open,
& afterwards feeling
the scar & the scare recede
from that bit of grit,
but also a lingering sense
of guilt for letting