I wrote a poem sitting on the bench here. I wonder how many scrabble points it's worth. So much to say, so few letters. If dogs could play scrabble I wonder how many letters they would use. I think some species would have advantages over others. I guess the idea of literate dogs is silly. The idea of literate people is practical. Here's the context of the picture...
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Why I’m in Barbeque Run
ReplyDeleteWe’ve come up a mountain
to see a former home.
My dad says he doesn’t know
what the hell he was doing
over and over like a spring
rain. Fat bumblebees.
We came up a mountain on foot,
he didn’t say to put on walking
shoes. Halfway down again.
Sheril. Longer than I’m alive
she’s lived in the cabin.
Thirty ears from now Pop’ll say
I didn’t know what the hell I was doing,
or I’ll have to say it for him. A joke today—
I don’t know how you get anything
done all day, you’ve gotta be tired when you wake up.
Whaddya mean? (Shows his yellow teeth)
You’re under so many blankets
you’ve got to be tired when you wake up.
That’s winter. No pictures. Summers
they pose on the porch. Beards,
flannel, cutting apples, really.
What was he doing? Not paying taxes.
Trying his luck. I think he was learning.
In twenty minutes in the tamed wilderness
I step through poison ivy,
Sheril says to do whatever I want.
Soap water. Hot water.
There was no heat when Pop moved to the shack.
What does a kiss feel like
when your lips are numb?
Figures, he was 18. Selfless priorities.
I’m already 22, and earned a college degree
in the middle of my own nowhere.
Flat seems like a miracle after four days in the mountains.
Of course, everything is relative.
If you can survive
that’s miracle enough.
It’s his story. I’m hitching a ride
to graduate school. He’ll help me move in,
in a different way than his father
would have helped him; fewer nails,
more dollar bills.
He didn’t say I don’t know what I’m doing, but
I didn’t know what I was doing
which is obvious and inarguable
because doing isn’t reason it’s surviving.
I’m glad my dad did. Without knowing what.
I’m glad the sun just came out
and shines on his new car parked across the run.
I don’t mind eating Sheril’s venison casserole.
Staying the night, she offered—
and no one knows how far to Blacksburg.
We’ll wake up early and drive, for once,
with the sun, before it touches the hollow.
It’s easy, not knowing. Then he left.
Hunger, cold, girlfriend. Now he returned.
I trust it’s on the way and
he’s looking again for a story.
The first time I saw the cabin it was dark and I was tired. 5 hours of driving a '53 chevy pickup through the dark up and down twisty WV roads left us ready to settle in somewhere. Your dad, still on crutches from a motorcycle accident, led the way. He took 3 steps and dropped out of sight. Dry Run, obscured by vegetation and dark, wasn't where he remembered. In the morning that same vegetation attracted butterflies in such profusion that we had to brush them aside to get to that tepid water. I'm glad you got to see it.
ReplyDeleteSam sent little Oscar this card.
ReplyDelete