Thursday, June 30, 2011

Reflections: On the Farm; draft #3

I walk past buildings built of hollowed aged wood,
their lower levels diffused with dung and dust
of 200 years.
Thought painted now pale red dozens of times over,
still faded hoary-marked rosette
white and red and dapple green,
sheep sometimes for lawnmowers.

Flaking paint half-covers the corn crib
now a simple rectangular skeleton
who for evenings reposes with its long lean shadow,
its body ripped-almost apart by the tides of seasons gone by.

Iron rings against iron
as mother calls us to dinner by banging heavy on a great metal triangle,
a dinner part made by an acre now come full
of cucumber, peas, green beans, corn,
and so many that the mind loses count.

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Thin Sheet; draft #1

A man stands hands holding high a sign
and as an aside he digs trenches boy 'til he can't dig no more.

For every road a trench and these trenches are deep.
Ten feet deep built to hold fortunes of gold.

And though his eyes may be Portland
fogged in quiet
on a slow rainy night,
lately I linger awake.

The sweat and stink of my body
sings into my nostrils' airs
and the also scented thin sheets pulled lightly-tightly over my naked body
in this calm but all too warm and humid autumn eve.