Forrest Pritchard's Blog, page 2

I Hung The Moon On A Nail

I hung the moon on a nail
In my kitchen, a blank space
Of sky or wall or whatever
You believe the horizon to be—

Most people believe it’s something.
I believed there was a nail there
And the painting concurred, strung
Soon and perfectly too high,

Much like the moon often is.
My algorithm insists I love Clair
De Lune, and I agree—Debussy’s
Sighing notes sleepwalking

Through the bluetooth speakers
You know the ones I mean,
The familiar sound the moon makes
As it rises through the window,

Over the rooftops, beyond the gauze
Of clouds before settling, on a wire,
On a nail, in a kitchen, dripping
Eternity against eggshell emptiness.

When You Love Someone You Make Them Biscuits

When you love someone
You make them biscuits,
Flour flung everywhere
In this eager expression of

Affection, kneading the salted
Dough without word or thought
And greasing the pan with great
Circular swoops, holding the

Stick of butter as a child
Grasps a crayon, eyes relaxed,
Setting out cold marmalade
And jams as the biscuits bake

Golden soft, and calling gently as
The warmth wafts up the steps:
“I’ve made you biscuits, dear one,
And put the kettle on for tea.”

How To Heal

It’s been nine months since I cut my
Finger nearly to the bone, September
2022, the knife laying indifferently
On the counter as the blood gushed

Across the kitchen tiles, across
Everywhere, six stitches three hours
Later in the Jefferson County West
Virginia emergency room. I was alone

And I have remained mostly alone since,
Grown alone, six weeks later severing
The black sutures one by one,
The scar a bas-relief moon waxing

Pink upon my right index finger.
Understandably, no one especially cares
About a forty-eight year old man with
Six stitches in his finger. We all know

He’s going to be fine, eventually, applying
Neosporin to the weeping wound each night
After he brushes his teeth. Still, nine months
Seems like something, doesn’t it?

Holy. Delivering. My skin healed first
Then slowly the nerves, my fingertip
No longer a numb wooden nuisance
But one morning wholly sensitive

Once more. The body is programmed to
Heal! All of it! Someone once told me
It’s wrong to say that healing takes time;
Instead, it requires process. Intentional process.

Of course I’m no longer talking about my finger
Here—I’m sure you already guessed at that.
Nine months means a birthday. Well, happy
Birthday, scar! I was still finding blood far

Into November, behind the toaster where
It somehow splashed, and smeared across
The back of the oven towel rack. But enough
Of all that. I trace the thick scar, recalling

Pain that was once real but now no longer
Exists. How can this be? Perhaps I worked hard,
Worked really, really hard!—worked as though
Healing was the only thing that mattered,

Surrendering again and again until, intent on
The process, passionate, indefatigable, I awoke
In May to find the pain spontaneously dissolved,
Replaced by burgeoning spring outside my door.

Another Poem About Roses, etc.

The roses have enjoyed the
Rain so much this year that
I’ve been slamming them all
May in the door, their drowsy

Petal-heavy necks bowing
To my screen door’s guillotine—
Deflowered once weekly and guilty
Of nothing more than growing.

Oh, it’s hard to grow isn’t it? Not
Tall, I mean. Or lost. Or old. No, these
Things aren’t hard, but they’re painful.
And we’ve all had the opportunity to

Suffer: hands bitten by the family
Dog, words exchanged during a fender-
Bender in the Arby’s parking lot, or
Perhaps something so small as giving

Away your heart, then sometime, at a later
Date, having it returned. This is of course
The moment (this last one, I mean) when
It becomes clear that every Fleetwood

Mac song was specifically written for you—
Yes, entire albums, and other things. What
Other things do I mean? Well, things like
Care. And self-care. And caring. And

When we actively care we begin to notice
Synchronicities, like how our friend Karen
Has the word “care” in her name, and though
We’ve been speaking her name aloud for

Decades we’ve somehow never heard it
From our own mouths. With our own ears.
The kind of growth where we start to see
Things we haven’t before, capable of

Feeling things we couldn’t—the type where,
In the lonely depths of mid-February
Our eyes open at 3:15 AM and, exhausted
From pain, for a moment—just a moment!—

We glimpse at the process of forgiveness.
Oh dog-bitten fingers! Oh tender, broken-
Hearted adults! Oh plastic fender-bendered
Bumpers, the estimate is $2,200. All

Painful! But back to the roses slamming
Their heads in the door. They make it seem
Almost too easy. Sweetly-scented hydras
Surrendering their surfeit of skulls—

Twenty-eight more, no thirty—safely
Knowing the heart is buried deep within
The watered, black soil, the sun glowing
Reliably, forever, far above any frost line,

While we, with sincerest intentions,
Attend to our indescribably human work—
Putting on shoes each morning, eating our
Breakfast, and closing the door behind us.

On The Appalachian Trail, May 15, 2023

I’ve been eating bread and
Honey mostly lately,
Cat hair on the counter
Where my shedding twins

Know not to hop—
But more specifically
Know not to hop
When I’m watching.

I clean and I tidy,
Do yoga daily,
Tend to the farm.
Days of growing revelation:

On the Appalachian Trail,
Raven Rocks, near Bluemont
Virginia, peeing into a
Thicket of witch hazel

I find the man with eyes
That show the skies straight
Through him. He stops, a
Through-hiker seeing

Connection, his square-shaped
Pack blackly looming like
The backdrop of a theatre:
“I’ll tell you a joke,”

He begins, “It’s one I tell
Every day-hiker I encounter.”
Yes, he actually said encounter.
The man then tells a joke

I shall not repeat here.
It wasn’t very funny.
Don’t think, I thought, proceeding,
Recalling his red beard

Swaying thick as a fox’s tail,
The way he grasped my eyes,
Seizing them without hesitation.
Truth! Truth! Maya Angelou

Wrote, When someone shows
You who they are, believe
Them the first time. It
Strikes me to believe him

Like I believe the slaty rocks, the
Long-winged caddis, the loblolly
Pine with windswept branches, spelling
Words I can read without knowing

Their definitions. Look for yourself.
From behind, far away now,
You see the through-hiker kneeling
At the stony trailhead, stooping

For packets of salmon, crackers,
Dehydrated potatoes left by angels,
Or perhaps simply people who will laugh at
His jokes, even when they’re not funny.

The Girl Who Went Adventuring

The girl who went adventuring
Picked up her heart one day
Where she had stored it in the pantry
And placed it in her pocket.

Out by the river she floats
Through the bluebells marveling,
Spicebush, sassafras, vaguely
Thinking, “Have I ever seen a paw paw?”

No matter. So many thorns to catch
On her clothing, so many sticks
To dig at the fabric of her dress—
Hands, pulling her back. Oh no,

She will not be held! She moves on,
Beneath sycamores sweeping,
An infinity of blue sky beyond.
How is it empty pockets now bulge,

Filled with interesting stones? When
Did her feet became muddy,
Her ankles scratched and weeping
With cuts? But she notices none of

These things, notices nothing, save
The sparkling sunlight on the
Shenandoah, the osprey’s great wings
Spanning bank to bank, the

Delicate shadows beneath the ivy,
And the miraculous sound of traffic
Far in the distance, where she knows life
Proceeds, whenever she someday returns.

Last Night I Threw Two Eggs

Last night I threw two
Eggs at a pregnant moon,
The first I had noticed in months,

Knowing no finger could
Point it out, the most qualified,
Well-intentioned of moon-guides

Certain to lead me astray:
This way—no that! Can’t you
See where I gesture? But

No, I’m sorry, I cannot,
The only way I’ll see the moon
Is when I’m able;

Here’s a like on YouTube.
Hercules, shooting his arrow
At the sun, was rewarded

With a cauldron that
Bobbed him to Erytheia.
Rewarded, for his audacity!

Do you want to know
How far the eggs made it?
Not far. Certainly not to the moon.

One went up, then down.
The second went up, then down.
The arc of two eggs,

Concluded. What will I
Receive for my bravery?
Bleak business, perhaps,

This throwing of eggs.
My cats, however, happily
Ate the albumen, lapping

Smeared yolk from the lawn,
Noses sniffing the darkness,
Their upturned eyes overflowing

With momentary moonlight.

Fallen Fence (v.2.4)

The fence in the woods
Has finally fallen,
Propped all this time by
The sinewed remains of
Honeysuckled deer bones,
Single mistimed leaps
Where, twisting, twisting,
The leg at last is liberated
And the carcass molders to
Apatite and phosphate,
Bowled into the lap of soil.

Have you followed these fences
Too? Rusted intent, its barbed
Wire poised to puncture actual
Air. Run your palm along its
Flaking length, gentle spasms
Of corrosion. Our eyelids twitch
Sometimes with the same tender
Entropy. Potassium. Nitrogen,
Fixed from the pregnant breath
Of exhaled leaves, fecund,
Each footstep breathing sighs.

Hungry jellied mouths
Orangely supping, conical
Fungi where the farmer mis-
Skinned the bark from the post,
And lichen pulps the locust.
Push, and it yields—the crescent
Earth gasping plain surprise.
Hydrogen. Sulphur. Nothing
Much pondered during
The building of fences,
Where the digging iron

Strikes stones, quartz-
Veined limestone, fissile shale
Slick with micas, throwing
Bright sparks extinguished
The instant they ignite. Friable,
Such afternoons squandered—
The trunks subsuming wire,
Dutifully swallowing it whole,
Straightening dappled light
Into inconsolable lines
Divided, willful calumny.

Ain’t Nothing Straight (v.2.3)

Ain’t nothing straight:
This farm house
Bain to masons;
The jigsawed barn
Anathema— in 2007
A one-footed carpenter
Threw his hammer over
The hill, and I found
It years later
Ensconced with rust;
In 1999, the Venetian
Complimented the fence rows—
So straight, so precise—
Ignoring the rolling hills.
The wind? Not straight neither,
Combing the fields into
Parts: left, right, backwards,
Cowlicked. What kind of place,
Where the walnuts wend
Wayward, and the spring
Trickles at turns silver,
Opaque, translucent, its
Fish free to fly to the
Shenandoah, Potomac,
Chesapeake—triangulated,
Just as rivers run straight!

I’ve seen nothing straight—
My sister, the one who
Reads Emily Post, shows me
Her her crooked fingers,
Bent now at the
Knuckle below the nail.
It’s a syndrome, she says.
I remember in 1984
When she bought a
Purple Rain poster,
Hanging it on her West
Virginian wall.
Holy, this disobedience!
Even the pious,
Bent at the knee,
Flip to the page
The priest instructs.
So much flipping—
So much rise and sit,
Fall, and arise! But
Across the open pasture,
Spiraled sunshine streams
Forth—touching nothing as
It passes near,
Around,
And almost straight through.

Two Hawks (v.2.2)

A pair of sharp-shinned hawks

Found our farm. Never

Far from one another,

Perched in the outstretched arms

Of hackberries—trees, in their way,

Probably not much

Older than the birds. I made

Rounds on the tractor, mowing winter

Blackberries, burgundy

Canes guarding thick blankets

Of dead grass—mouse’s houses—

Summer pasture passed over,

Too prickly for the delicate lips of

Cattle. They watched me, these

Two, leaning with suspicion,

Approximating my proximity,

And I recalled when, as a boy,

I raised a sheet of sun-warmed

Tin—a collapsed shed roof—

To discover two black snakes

Tranquilly coiled and watchful,

Dark shadows in the dust,

Flickering forked tongues

To taste my intent. Delighted,

I sprinted to inform the farm
Hands, only to return the next day
To find the metal thrown aside,
And both snakes decapitated.

No hydras here, their

Bodies stiff with rigor mortise,

The tracks of boot heels

Puncturing the dust, black

Blood everywhere. Bitter

Betrayal! A boy, I buried

Them in the stony, splashing

Sepulcher of my heart, left

Decades for the hawks

To find, falling earthward

To soar, winging skyward

In an effortless, unwavering arc.