HEREABOUTS ~

Prize

Away from the road,

Off into the high edge

Of a field, unless I

Looked carefully you

Would never have been seen

Picking wildflowers

Growing in folds of sunlight

Among the tall grass.

Each snipped by hand

At the same height, then

Gathered inside a pail

Of shallow water.

The world seems weightless

Watching you work,

If this is work —

You call it a prize

Saved for the last

Hour of the afternoon,

Taking away what this

Plot of land has to give —

Flowers for the kitchen table,

Brightened windowsills.

Day and Night

How often have we

Stepped together into water —

You left your clothes on the rocks

And shivered your way to me,

Said it was freezing as I thought

Of the mountain stream filling this

Clear basin of evening light, and how

Swallows showed us the angles of the sky

Far above barbed wire and pasture heat

Which we came down from after work

Smelling lilac in the breeze —

And it was the long blonde hair you shook

Out of a blue bandana and later braided

That had me remember the day and night.

Hands

He was the first

One ever to show

Me anything, and

Make sense, about

A garden. When he

Called me down into

The fenced half-acre

I walked through the

Wire gate and found

Him shoulder high

In the early morning

Blossom of peas.

And snapping a pod

Open, with the same

Hands that cut timber,

Mended fence and

Milked cows — who

Came in here every

Morning before he

Went off to chores —

He put everything

Into my hands

When he said,

Now taste this.

Hereabouts

                

                        for Jim Koller

The town is acting proud,

Even a photograph in the newspaper,

Everyone I talk to hereabouts

Has something to say about

The bear that was shot nearby.

I haven’t really pinned down

Where it was killed, but one

Mile between us and the radius

Of the valley seems a fair account.

That would include across the river,

Up the incline of timber to

Owl’s Head Range, where three winters

In a row we would hear probably

The same bear rumbling around

In this box of territory left to roam.

Funny noises he makes, hoots

And barks, moans with long silence.

We listened. No better than

The next guy, just listened

To a sound you don’t hear

Too much of any longer hereabouts.

Like the golden eagle over

West River last spring, ice going out

I stood there where I was working,

Chain saw shut down quiet,

Watching the bird float above the day —
You miss it when it’s gone.

_____________________

Bob Arnold

WHERE RIVERS MEET