We'd See Him WalkWe’d seen him walk the coast. No man can pass this way without it being spread long before his feet stepped near.
Him more than others. . .stopping to talk to all he saw. And knocking at every door, hey. Not that there’s many to see or shanty house for him to rap knuckles at.
Specially when we’re out to sea or jigging at good shots of rum. Having our fun, you know. We’d be starting our bottles between the breaking waves. About when half our pots were hauled to hull.
Women and what kids weren’t to salt is all he saw. Talked holy and we men wanted none of that wind. The gales enough to fight against, without having to be taught what’s sin.
Well, word went about the harbor that this man had no place in setting our shorefolk to ways of his. And asking them for us to take nets in hands opened anew.
Now who’s a stranger to say we what’s been dragging for cod, hauling lobsters there years? And often enough pulling one of ourselves from the deep, eyes swelled to drowned sleep.
We waited until he’d come to the Skull—a cliffside steep and treacherous to drive. It lay on his way to the next county and sure it was the only walk to take.
I took it on a bit and got myself all set. Came in early to shore and tipped some shot glasses dry. Then, soon as I seen him start that steep climb—jumped to the truck and took after his tail.
First I offered him a ride—a jug we’d share. But no, he smiled and said god bless, he’s to go on a way already laid.
Now you know that pulled on my hook a little too tight. I rammed up that hill with stones splattering from tires burning the road black. Turned at the top and finished a fifth. Let that clutch go with shouts of god damn and the radio ablast.
Seeing him turning a curve, I just barely swerved to save my own bodily self.
Him. . .he got grazed. I could see him spin and roll to the rock.
Truck, I backed it fast and laughed from the cab above, asking him had he any words to say. Answered something of love and don’t know if I got madder or scared of what I’d have to do to get down.
No stranger’s walking my shore with words like those. Why they be mocking me at the docks as being but a bit of a man—one not fit to heave at any net with them.
To say nothing of swigging at barwood. . .our shoulders touching with heavy laughter and girls we share.
So sure, I back-tracked to a turn. Floored the pedal till I felt my foot was burning as gas. Saw him just at the top, limping and bleeding. . .an intruder what had to be cast from our lot.
And he stood just before my cab came to its crest. Held out both arms as if it was me he wanted to catch.
Course, now in thinking back, I’m sorry I did what got done. Not that the judge saw so much harm. Hadn’t wanted him about as well—is what he said.
Just asked me to be more careful in taking those curves.
Now, as I walk the coast, I see his face at each bend. Give thanks for his blood that my feet can step near.Paul Weinman
In Telling of Timbering
In telling of timbering to them who come upon trees later in days like these—why it’s frowned foreheads I meet talking differences we had to wood soft or hard.
More so to sorting by type—all such, you know.
Pines went first with their girth awesome; then spruce, balsam and fir. This taking slowed, what with the vigorous haul over hills far from mills. Then it was when spring-fast rivers would float them by the millions. . .bark being peeled away for softwood bob. Decking of winter-cut tree rolled to stream-sides left more stacked and cut to skid then stood alive in the wood.
The hard trees such as those colors of ash, cherry, oak and birch were left almost to last. . .they’d jam up the boom even in swift water flow. It was the weight, even when debarked to lighten bulk.
Mostly they’d been taken to charcoal kilns where iron was in smelt. Or selected out to burn warmth for frost of winter nights. Wasn’t till the conifers got so scarce that even their trouble to peavey pole and pike was making money enough to hold water to sluice at dams built special for them.
It’s the hemlock that held more vexing to them picking at what to take so’s profit to make. Wasn’t till most other types were taken that lumber milled from that was found suited to strut buildings stable. . .stock in hemlock took a mighty fast leap.
And when it did, many’s the hands were wrung for the waste of those left at stump.
Cause hemlock, you know, had for years been skinned for bark. Piled high to sled drawn for tannery towns where great sheaves were leeched out to tan hides taken from deer.
Sure those many naked trees stood straight as skeletons mocking them who could have swelled purse with their wood. The thick stems soon filled with worms and wet. . .felled quick with wind to rot.
Then it was that new chemicals came to leave the rude bark not worth its work.
The last of its use was in crushing rough chunks for circus use. Shovelled to where animals performed for people’s cheer—kept what wasn’t so clean looking some other way. Oh yes, hemlock—it had some special deadening effect to the rims of wagon wheels that bounced and rolled to cobbled streets.
Was necessary where the wealthy laid after passing to the Beyond. We’d all know where and when by its being spread. At house spelled out with hand-woven designs in silk of black.
Wouldn’t want the sound of common life to disturb those monied ones deep in dirge for death and will to read.Paul Weinman
Goes to Show You
Dad, he’s always goes to show you so. Can’t hardly make a mistake, when as quick as a weasel he’ll goes to show you so.
Course I’m too young to know when it started. I ask ma and she sighs. Grandpa. . .stamps his wood foot and swivels off to the opposite side. Often enough to whittle another or work at carving a peg to have an extra right handy.
I got my suspects that it goes way back. To when grandpa took in a piece of his living by skinning out otter, martin, and beaver. Sure, he drove log and guided city swells to where the big trout lay. But trapping back then held families to needs when snow-time purses got tight.
Now that them animals aren’t so much as before, it seem a sadness comes down on grandpa. Even in prayers heard with my ear to his wall—him asking forgiveness. . .naming each fur so’s God knows he hasn’t forgot.
Dad remembers and gives him the rib. Especially when there’s talk or pictures of coats. . .when a mink stole gots no where to hide. . .goes to show you so.
One night, dad doing more than enough in the brew—he starts up for no reason doing a dance. Come on pa, he says. Join with me in a jump or two!
Now, ma goes to tears and I stand at the wall. Grandpa, he twists to turn—but dad mocks out that God forgave all that. Where’s your faith, he slurs. You’ve taken no more furs. Forgiven, isn’t that what you believe? Forget the foot that got left.
Then just as he was about to go, grandpa skipped a bit. Then took a few quick steps more. A smile broke open and never a jig did I ever see such as he.
When at last he sat wet in sweat, grandpa. . .he had only one phrase to say.Paul Weinman
The Ice Fisherman
From here he appears as a black spot, one of the shadows that today have found it necessary to assume solid form, and along with the black jut of spruce forested shoreline far to the left, the only break in the undifferentiated gray of ice and overcast sky. Here is a man going jiggidy jig jig in a black hole. Depth and the current are of only incidental interest to him. He's after something big, something down there that is pure need, something that, had it the wherewithal, would swallow him whole. Right now nothing is happening. The fisherman stands and straightens, back to the wind. He will stay out on the ice all day.
Louis Jenkins
Sacrifice
Between a father and a son
climbing the mountain together,
firewood and hatchets in their packs,
a silence of strangers develops,one knowing what he intends to do
with the other's life, one feeling
in his bones what may be done
to him, defiant, dragging his heels
and tossing the firewood stick by stick
away when his father's not looking,
and sometimes when he is.This far along there is no one to help.
He thinks of sending the boy back down
for more wood, forgetting the whole thing,
going through the motions to save his own
and the boy's life.He believes this is the way
it has to be, that things have a way
of working out, that if he
clings to his faith he and the boy
will meet at the foot of the mountain
someday and be friends.Climbing the bluff, they lay their
packs down carefully as knives,
stalking each other, needing
a ram in the thickets, the wood
bursting into flames, their eyes flashing
the old mystery of blood, on guard,
ready to kill for their faith.Walter McDonald
*
With our fingers
we graze on fences, rails
strung as a kneeling spider will edge
till a song threatens its throat
and we lift the sun to our lips
--where the wood breaks apart
we reach for a mouth
--wherever the ledge cracks
lower and lower that song
pulled from erupting roots
tangled in branches and winds
--a blind song :the wick
tugged from a throat, from that stone
as a great blade will stir in our hand
loosen and the sun fall away.We lift the sun, swallow long trains
bending against window panes
as tight-rope walkers carry a pole
and ribbons blacken their eyes
and the drenched mountain peaks
stand up in our arms
--we cry with our fingers
with a sun that can't fly away
that feeds us the caught, the ravines
the brittle and we swallow these flames
these fingeres, this pain
still flaring through rock
through every fire we pull from the Earth.We weep
that every fire be replenished
that each morning the sun
as an insect will listen for the heartbeat
we all know will happen
and happen again, and we weep
remembering the sound
and the trains striking against the rails
against our lips soaked in salt
against our tears
against the fences.Simon Perchik
Defender of the Faith
when I climb the parapets
of Eternal Law
and peer through binoculars
at our besiegers. . .dots,
thick as anchovies
in the hostile sea,
I think--those could be our sons
squatting among the enemy
around seeds
stolen from our firetree
our sons. . .
toasting their palms'
blank pagesthey say swine
root at the base
of our sacred oak
and youths kiss
under a burning bush
hanged from sky's lintel
like red mistletoeCarolyn Stoloff
Elders
They come again
To an old table,
A waterfall
Beside a fountain.
In families or
Alone, they gather,
Their white hair
On speckled temples
Flowing in streams
Or runnels, close
Or far apart.
What they remember
Follows them here
Across these hills
And shadowed valleys
Until it spills
In this cold pool
And halts—or seems
To halt. And now
They bathe, their arms
Outstretched, as if
To catch the moving
Light. Their need
Encircles them
Like water churned
By a dipped paddle
Or soil squeezed
In a closing hand.Ben Howard
