Forrest Pritchard's Blog, page 3

The Edge of Wild (v.2.1)

The edge of wild, where
Hickory and goldenrod nod
Cobwebbed September awake—
Afternoon heat from the asphalt,
And the sweetly stinking carcass
Picked over by the black-headed
Buzzards until, sated and flown,
Timid turkey vultures approach,
Sadly hopping forth with hope.

You’ve seen this broken

Scene, the forty six year

Old man, castaway in the wreck

Of self-loathing bones—

Oh, wild! No pity, too broken

To even wash his own socks,

Hunting asparagus along the fence

Rows sprung forth from bird droppings.

Succor! Wild child! Still,

We dream of mothers

From 1950s sitcoms, smelling

Chocolate chip cookies

As we forage for fiddleheads,

Chanterelles, ramps along the wooded

Creek bottom. Unrequited comfort.

The apron strings so starkly

Black and white, and

The kitchen set straight every night.

Out on the river, the water

Gin-clear, the man looks

Over the side and sees

Not only the stony bottom but, just

Above, catfish, blue-gray shadows,

Scores upon scores, uncatchable as

Sleeping dreamers, unconscious

And floating one inch above the bed—

Or three feet below, it doesn’t

Matter. It’s a very deep sleep.

Oh, heartbroken wild,

Wracked with nodding shame!

Grief! Suffering! The man fixed

Frozen where the water is so clear,

He could reach a hand and

Pluck a fish brightly as a guitar string—

One lonely, tentative note, filling the

Autumn air with plaintive song.

Love Poem From Quarantine (#52)

I can’t hold April from

Six feet away, can’t

Smell her, kiss her,

Taste her from behind

This cotton mask.

A spring of many mouths—

Chickweed opening its lips

To the anxious wasp,

The first drowsy honey

Bees, pollen-thick thighs,

Tongues licking purple red

Buds, lavender-perfumed

Lilacs. Dogwood spied

Spectral through the

Greening forest—

All at a distance,

All a lost season where

The world is suspended

Upside-down in a sky-

Bound drop of dew,

Plashing love—don’t think

I can’t hear you,

The sound of your passing

Fingertips, caressing

The empty air,

Holy as the sun, still

Seen behind closed eyes.

For John Prine (#51)

There’s a green river never far.

At the waking cusp of sleep,

Where around each bend

I find myself looking back

As often as forward—

The paddle dripping silver—

To catch a glimpse of precisely

What I’ll never see again.

The pink moon moves,

Pushed by black clouds.

There are no contrails tonight,

No geometry of sky,

Only the winking light of

Stars whose names would

Probably sound familiar.

Sopping black earth,

Drenched with certainty, and rain.

Cherry petals cling to my

Work boots, ghostly, floating

With the praise of spring.

I carry good luck as I go,

Or as I don’t—the same.

When, at sixteen, I first learned
The Shenandoah had another
Name—daughter of the stars—
I fell in love straightaway
With the world. Sweet apocrypha,
Leading to the waterfall’s edge.
Does it matter that part of me wants

To plunge, too, to perhaps see

What can never be seen?

Morning, with dew sparkling

Bright! Tender trembling of April

Leaves! The world is quieter—

Not quite quiet. Five miles away,

The river glints, green now gold,

Changed with a wave of the hand.

Aesthetically Invasive (#50)

I see you, western New York,

Finger lakes wolf-clawed

Across the map, sleeting sheets

Of snow peppering the salted

Highway. Two hundred and fifty six

Miles of abandoned tractors,

Silos filled with hollow sky,

Green verge of fencerow

And shaggy headed reeds,

Aesthetically invasive, nodding

“Yes, yes” where Wegman’s

Parking lot meets the marsh.

This is precisely the same

Everywhere, what we all know

Without seeing, a single emerald

Cover crop at the clover leaf

Just outside Rochester. We rise,

Merging, above the stone-

Picked fields, where black-hatted

Mennonites have returned, swept

Here on the same wind that

Stirred the lake schooners,

The bankers and businessmen,

The moldering barons of Buffalo.

Punk Onions (#49)

The snow lies in cockscomb

Shadows on the tin roof,

Hiding from the sun.

Little can for long,

Perhaps the bottoms of stones,

The undercut stream bank,

American living rooms.

In my dim kitchen, the onions

Sprout green spiked hairdos,

Veggie punks, like the ones

They showed on tv when

I was a kid, desperate to scare.

It worked at first, didn’t it?

Those bright, flashing squares.

Our parents warned us,

“Don’t sit too close,

You’ll ruin your eyes.”

Saccharined, stupefied,

Children mistaking sitcoms for

Sunshine. But they found light

Where no one else could—

The onions, I mean, and

The punks. Green feathered

Canaries in coal mines,

Sweetly singing “kill, kill, kill!”

Rhapsodic and dire, but our

Parents only heard gibberish,

Only saw darkness as the world

Around them ignited, burning,

Ablaze with the brightest light.

Auld Lang Syne (#48)

I’m still in love,

It turns out,

After all this time.

Where else was there to be?

The woman walks her dog

Along the sidewalk, conspicuously

Avoiding eye contact, and

I can’t know her pain.

The boy stares into his screen,

Watching himself play himself,

And I look over his shoulder,

My own blue eyes reflected.

Those nested acres of earth

Tucked between the highway and

The exit ramp, a laboratory of

Saplings and garbage, invisible—

When do we smell the soil,

And what do we notice?

I cup it to my nose

Like damp potter’s clay,

Determined to become whole,

Breathing the dark,

Crumbling chunks that

Smell of old books.

Remaining in love,

There is no apart—

I am at the world’s service,

Tracking mud through the rain.

Listen. Once a year we sing
Auld Lang Syne,
Intuitive hymn,
Praising kindness!

We stare into strangers’ eyes,

Swept into whatever’s next.

As if it could ever be otherwise,

We resolve for nothing less.

The Chainsaw (#47)

Gentle, where the chainsaw

Gouges the bark,

Throwing thick chips,

Ripping life asunder.

I work in the cool

December light

To clear the year.

Saplings sprung from pasture,

So much life! There’s

Nothing somnolent about

The saw, no effete snoring,

This hungry, smoking bastard.

I grip it tenderly,

Felling a black cherry,

A box elder maple,

A fork-branched mulberry.

How much to do

On a winter afternoon?

The saw gutters, grumbling,

Its silver chain sweetly oiled.

These trees will all be back—

Here, there, in that distant field.

New Years, it seems,

Is rarely ever so far.

December Brushstrokes (#46)

Planets aren’t supposed to twinkle,

But Venus, low on the horizon,

Has wrapped itself in glittering glass,

Sparkling a thumb’s width below Saturn.

When the photo arrives in the mail

From a distant cousin’s distant cousin,

The old house looks little as it does now,

Festooned with a milliner’s ivy hat.

The old dog goes lame, and the X-rays

Show cancer. Twelve years is a lifetime

For a large breed. There’s no comfort.

When she dies, part of us is gone.

The smell of smoke in December air.

Is it true, that a tree can catch flame?

It seems so unlikely, dripping green with

May rain, each leaf slick and silver-wet.

The road disappears into the gray sky.

We know it’s not so, telling ourselves

It’s only an illusion, recalling fairytales

Where boys climbed above the clouds.

The Great Rush of Ivy (#45)

The great rush of ivy

Up the side of a sycamore—

How far does it know to go?

Red leaves, puddled before

A stoppered storm drain,

Barely moving in crystal water.

The most fertile soil lies

Between the highway and the field,

Where the farmer can’t till.

Have I spent a thousand lifetimes

Learning to see the grass?

I suspect more, and more to come.

The teacher recalled the apparition,

Describing death as taking off

A shoe that’s too tight.

Will I get to see the ivy again?

I hope so. It’s lovely, to know

That it knows what we don’t.

Mythological Blue (#44)

What a distraction, all these leaves—

I can’t see a thing!

Willow oaks shiver, aflame,

Showering axial sparks.

In Washington, Colorado Avenue

Waits until Thanksgiving to blush

Ruby, russet, bending the

Algorithm of Instagram.

Where does the sky go?

Blue, blue! This is why

Farm girls leave the gray

Dairies of upstate New York,

Suffering lobbyists, stuffed

Olives, withered trails of plastic—

Ignited autumn, in search of

Mythological blue.