Monday, January 30, 2017

PERFECT WORLD ~





        




Perfect World



I could sit here

All day trying to

Draw a circle

Perfectly round



But a bird

Made one

Into

A tree









Pal Goose



On that sunny day

I opened your pen door

And let you out —

You loved the sun

Sun on snow

Making tracks to the pond —

Because it got too busy

But I have no excuse how

I forgot to close your

Pen door and left home



Sometime in the evening

Faraway, thoughts to you and

The open door but I would get back

The moon was out, and you

Loved the moon —

The raccoon was out, and he

Hunts by the moon

The next morning you were

Found dead with eyes open

Suddenly flat and huge on the snow



Too big for raccoon to even bother with

Whose blood-tracks tricky designed away

And then as if he noticed how obvious

Seemed to wash his murderous paws

Off in the snow and vanished



You were our third gander

In twenty years, flocks of

Geese once upon a time mixed

With ducks and chickens and when

Our rooster died you were the new

Rooster for the chickens —

It looked funny, it looked

Practical, you fit



I miss you now when I split

Wood and wait to hear your call

Loud and sudden and part of me








Autobiography



I stopped thinking

About my name today

When in the truck

Returning home with

My son after working

Together at a farm

Splitting wood,

Picking kindling

Around the chopping

Stump, slinging manure

Onto the winter garden

And later hiking

High into the heather

Pasture, now in the

Truck with his gloves

Still on he sized it

Up by saying he didn’t

Like the name Bob — it

Was too short, only three

Letters — and it sounded

Like a name half-city

Half-country






Sunshine



in the garden

along the rows



on her long hair

down her arms



_______________________

Bob Arnold
Once In Vermont 
Gnomon





This concludes Once In Vermont, poems by Bob Arnold
 published by Gnomon Books from Frankfort, Kentucky

Another book of poems by Bob will be
coming soon