Stars
Bigger as the night got later.
Nearing winter.
I’d walk out last thing of the day.
Bring in two armloads of stovewood.
For the next morning.
That’s when I heard the gunshots.
Unreal. In the middle of nowhere.
Louder than anything I’ve heard for weeks.
Native knew I could hear him jacking deer.
No one else in the world was down here.
One of those things we never talked about.
Fitzcarraldo
The time we worked in the woods
Cutting trees in the old sugar stand
Opening back up to the light and the
World some of the largest maples we
Had ever seen, Sweetheart called the
Job our Fitzcarraldo, after the Herzog
Film, when they cut a wide swath over
The mountain in a jungle to pull the
Ship over to reach another waterway —
But we were after no waterway
Just cutting tree after tree and
Brush and piling it all but still
Like the movie Sweetheart
Said she had the same opera
Music playing in her head
for Susan
Rule of Thumb
don’t stay
long in
any
town
with
out a
real
hard
ware
store
[ BA ]
from Yokel
(2011)
poems & photo © bob arnold
