Monday, October 28, 2019

YOKEL ( 3 ) ~







Earrings





He’d plow snow

All his life and

First with his

Father lights

Whipping the

Woods recall

From a heated

Cab tonight

Coffee thermos

Between the legs

And his own

Two boys riding

Along no matter

How late but damn

Things are getting

Strange how he’d

Never seen a woman

So pretty on this

Back road nor with

Four earrings in

Each ear and her

Friend had one

Stuck through

Her nose






Poet





Poet came to visit us from Arizona —

Not a country boy but with poet causes. 

He stood right up in the Howard 

Johnson’s next to our table and

Where his bus had come in and

Did a little routine that still

Makes me laugh. 

Back home in our woods 

Where he stayed a week

Poet wanted me to show 

Him how to split wood,

And then in the evening

Walking the flickering

Darkness of fireflies he

Asked, what were those?





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.





Occupied






Early morning

Walk into

The woodlot

Where birds sing



Soon enough

Our voices and

Sound of bow saws

Where birds sing



Where birds sing

We stop work and

Listen awhile

Until we sing




_______________
Bob Arnold
Yokel
Longhouse
2011