Stone Sonnet
A young dump truck driver
with a new truck and a handsome
stainless steel dump body that he
is very proud of and listen how the
load of small stones seem to laugh
as they rush in the thousands down
to the ground
he asks —
“why did you ask for the pile
of stone to be dropped
right in front of the door?”
I said, “if you want something
moved
Fair Warning
I went to find an old friend today
I had no idea it was a friend until I arrived
over the slope of early spring forest
the snow all vanished
the many spaces without foliage
a clean look for any eye
and coming over the rise
there was my old friend
long gone sugar maple tree
it was my companion decades
ago when cutting winter firewood
in this woodlot, now mostly broken
down and in massive sections rotting
into the earth, and the twenty feet still
standing is beyond recognition, you see
this was a tree I once talked to, knew it
was slowly dying then but I thought it
would take forever and now we are beyond
forever and I’m coming to grips what time
has passed, 200 feet away in my house, so easy
to see from where my friend passed on with-
out a word, in the wind, the winter, summer
play, fall passage and discovery spring —
I’m too late
don’t you be
Framing The Barn
How trusting, relaxed!
Daddy-Longlegs moves
Inches from my hammer blows
The Winter Of Big Snow
I shoveled more
snow bank today
cut it like
a wedding cake
moved the blocks
of snow as if
I was indeed
building an
igloo —
I did once
with my
son
he adored it
we both crawled inside
________________________
Bob Arnold
Heaven Lake
Longhouse 2018
