drought

 

drought

He said: To look hard at something, to look through it, is to transform it,

convert it into something beyond itself, to give it grace.

& I want to say: maybe, did you ever think, it already had 

grace?  & it was by its grace it made itself seen?

 

despite the ban

the neighbor has flames

ten or more feet

above his barrel cage.

fevered, the heat is all

his fuel has ever waited for: the fallen

then sawn or chopped logs

being, finally, released to seed,

defeated, & for every neighbor

with an eye or a nose to come to

know his own ignorance in matters

like this.

 

drought and fire are frenemies.

all that tinder and all it takes

is one itch.  at first the tongue

is tentative, like from the lips

of prey, like the does I saw

a few hours ago, gnawing

on the October goldenrod.  

their reach and consumption

is like kissing

velvet.  seemingly brief.  a lick.

a sideswipe jaw-gnaw.

& they’re so coated to their own

 

spruce & ash bark background,

they fall in, & the pines receive

them openmouthed, 

all those midas sprills

turning the green grass gold.

or else they’re close to the reclining

ferns, their toothy leafs of rust.

Healthy enough, those does,

coming up on November.  But,

 

& this is where most don’t

know drought: hunger is

under the tongue of all of this:

a sleeper not a sleeper, easy to,

seemingly, keep, all those

feet away, easy to stop

seeing them once they’ve lain

unafraid in the blonding

 

grasses.  Trained decay.  Dry

as June hay.  Ok.  I’ll say

I’m afraid for them.  Their waiting.

The dry head of the hydrangea

thin as bible paper.  & all that

grass, & the man in his chair

watching his fire climb,

ig(kn)knighted, delighted, &

all those piles & piles of pine

needles besides.

 

*quote from "Looking Around III" Charles Wright