This Is What Native Says At 50 Feet Up
A pine tree, long hanging ropes
Gassy hot day and chain saw with
Native dangling a moment topside
Of the tree like a burst of sunlight as if
He now were the sun, overweight in torn
Tanktop but with biceps the size of my legs
I hear him talk to the sky, the pissy work
And to me that yeah, my son is nineteen years old
And I wish he had never got into tree
Climbing and instead had gone off to
College since at one time he had
All the money in the world —
I asked, How’d that happen?
Waiting for him to lower down his limbing
Saw by rope and I’d refuel
Do you remember Woodstock II ? Native asked
I did —
And did you ever see the poster that went along
With the CD?
I hadn’t —
Well Native’s son went to Woodstock II and came
Back home with 33-thousand dollars —
I whistled at the amount while tying the
Saw off to hoist back up and Native was already
On a roll to get the old story over with:
How his son muddy and cummy over the musical
Weekend was asked to pose with his girlfriend
Nearly naked but she had a bra on was how
Native described it and for that one photograph
I was left to think that over while Native
Spiked in better footing, bitching about
Pine pitch and sweating like a pig,
Sending large saw-chip flurry from
Sharp tooth chain floating down onto
Me and fragrant honeysuckle bushes —
So the kid came home and spent most
Of the money on a new truck that Native
Drives and a bunch of other junk then
With a bottomed out credit card managed
To put himself in debt up to his eyeballs —
So when does he begin work? I joked
When he gets back from Cal-if-ornia ! says a
Snarling chain saw and Native as pine bough
After pine bough come flying down fast
Native Never Made It
It was Chucky the logger
Who told me later how
Native never made it —
Only a few weeks after
He took down the pine
Trees here and we rolled
Up the ropes together —
Turns out Native got in
With a wrong bunch
Much younger —
Drugs and drinking —
And they thought
Nothing about tanking
Up an old fart logger
With wicked cocaine
And dumping his
Gasping body off
At the emergency
Room entrance
From a car that
Never stopped —
Just like the movies
Without
Without the moon
Without stars
Snowshoes stay hung up
______________
Bob Arnold
Yokel
Longhouse
2011
