There is a picture I have
of she and I during hunting season
slinking through sage on our bellies,
breathing in the cold November air
and exhaling smoke-like circles that span the distance between us.

Her gloves have the tops cut off
and the tips of her fingers show purple already
even though we have just begun.

Behind us,
the wind is carrying in
a mass of snow-filled clouds;
the first flurries dainty and transient
on the signal-orange of our jackets.

We begin to scale the callous, lifeless rocks
that cover the hummocks between hunter and hunted

then crest the rising hill to see the huffing herd
upwind and unaware of our presence.

My nervousness is obvious, I know.

She watches me from under the tugged edge of her knit cap.

Breathe,

she reminds me.

You’ve got time,

she reminds me

and places her stiffened fingers on my back.

Take your time.

I watch the elk lift their noses to the incoming storm—

their regality unmatched.

I can’t

With a whisper loud enough to startle them all

I just can’t.

Aren’t they beautiful
she asks, watching them go

and turning the safety on.

Show me how you lift the sky

carrying your red;

show me how you wake and swell

and climb

into the billows where we meet.

 

Show me your crimson veins

over the rooftops and trees and the mountains deferred,

and I will show you how they stand in the cherry-dipped corners of their yards,

reaching high to touch.

 

See how they hold their children shoulder-high, and smile;

listen to their dogs bark and their horses whinny.

 

See how some carry the weight of the day in their eyes,

holding

holding on—

as they focus and stare

and grow lighter as you soar.

 

Show me your perfect arch into the shadows,

and I will stand in the corner of the upstairs patio

and get my picture taken with you over my shoulder

while I’m laughing,

 

because that’s something we’ve all done.

When you first learned about spiders that float on water
from the mid-summer grass, up-to-your-waist grass;

electric blue dragonflies
and Russian Olives, leaning and dipping their blue-green leaves into the wet.

Jumping fish in the shade,
tadpoles by the weed-dampened edge

and white butterflies, tissue-paper wings flitting around your knees;

each one after my heart

so differently.

It is hard to hear
the ice cream truck coming around the corner
when something bad happens
in a small town.

You can hold your breath until it feels right again;
you can watch the cars slowly passing—
each one so suspect,
that it makes more sense to lock the doors and stay inside.

But then the errands,
they pile up,
and the recycling needs to be taken to the city bins—
the ones at the east end of town close to the baseball fields.

Where beyond,
the sky is pink like strawberry and milk
over the churning prairie
and you can hear the sounds of a solid right-field hit
while the lights over the diamond turn on
and quiet, distant lightning informs the tinted sky.

How you love those players then.

Then, on your drive back through town
after your cans have joined the others with a clang
and cardboard is compressed,

there are teenagers parked and smoking by the 7-11;
they toss their heads back with laughter and derision,
the smell of their smoke wafting down Main
and disappearing when you pass the lake.

How you love those teenagers then.

Fishermen close their tackle boxes for the night
and pelicans balance indelicately on buoyant logs;
a snapping turtle lifts its head with a remitting ripple
and a couple walks arm in arm around the path by water’s edge.

How you love all of it then.

And then you can hear it– coming around the corner where the pinkish sky has followed you home
and where lightning comes with noise now.

It is the ice cream truck,
crooning through the streets and county roads
where everyone waves and smiles

just in time.

The sky was a color that undid itself;

silly putty that covered space over time,

moving south east

from the mountains.

 

The meadowlark, the cackling goose;

the red winged blackbird filled the air with sound

and without cacophony as many human voices sometimes mean.

A sonata, rather—

their ensemble interrupted only by the snap of mallard wings

rubberbanding from the cattail grass.

 

The titan nest of a bald eagle swayed in an outlying tree

as the sky had not yet darkened into what it would be.

 

That night the train rumbled to the south of us

sounding thunder into the shrinking prairie,

 

I drew the curtains back to see if the forecast was true;

 

but somehow looked past the thick, falling snow

and into the tree that kept changing faces in the moving light.

 

Your words were so soft and few from your stilled, unfolded form,

I pulled them against me like a sheet that gets tangled when you keep turning in your sleep.

 

I thought I felt the earth shake then—

from the train or from something else.                                                                                                                        

 

and counted its thunder and the peaceful calm that followed,

among some of my greatest blessings.

 

 

 

All around us,

everyone’s moving towards something;

the hurried lunch is made hurried,

the leftover breakfast softens under sink water for a day;

the laundry is piled, unfolded—

they rush out the door

running to beat the bell.

The dogs with their wide, brown, roaming eyes

lay in beds looking around big, silent houses.

 

Meanwhile,

I am sitting here,

depositing Cheerios into my mouth,

the underfoot dog is waiting for something to drop.

One child at school, one too young, and the other home sick.

We are watching the shadows of the sun move around the room and ignite the dust.

I take my daughter’s temperature,

her watery eyes and reddened cheeks lean into my shoulder.

My youngest and I find the corners of a puzzle whose pieces come together easily

on a day like today.

 

Later, I will help my sick child outside to the hammock

and let the sun do the work of her tired body for a bit.

We will read and rest and squint into the sky.

 

But for now,

I let the Cheerios fall for the dog—

the little circles hitting the kitchen floor softly,

meaning everything.

 

Once every week,

always the night before school started, a Sunday,

she would line them up like toy soldiers

and brandish the sharp little cutters

too small for her arthritic knuckles.

 

The finger on her left hand where her wedding ring was permanently stuck

(and no longer necessary)

was bent like a timeworn back that hates to straighten

when she waved for them to stand still and stay upright

until she could examine the assemblage of dirt.

 

They hoped for just the right amount of filth

underneath their nails:

too much meant they hadn’t washed;

not enough meant they needed to work harder.

 

And then with a whoosh, her heavy fingers would zip through

ten

twenty

thirty

forty

fifty

sixty seventy eighty extremities

all of different shapes and sizes

and with similar amounts of loam,

determining them to be somewhat clean

and agreeably punctilious.

 

When they were done,

one by one she would look them in the eyes

and give their rears a push

that sent them flying towards the bath

to wash the country off their bodies

until it started to collect again,

as soon as they got out.

 

The woman with the bent fingers—

my grandmother—

would then gather her thoughts and sit down for five minutes

to do her own nails with a smile on her face,

examining the thick raised veins and ridges of callous

until it was time to keep on with the chores

and put the clippers away.

When I see you coming down the road,

tires spinning and spitting out snow;

the high cottonwoods hefting their thick arms to wave

and the neighbors twisting their necks to watch the silver dust fly,

I forget the distance between us;

the jackrabbit and his burrow and the cold, white field in-between;

the horse pacing the line of fence connecting

she and the kind blanket inside.

 

Then I picture you,

moving through the sable light

on a high plateau of mountain scree in the cold,

your resolute lips turning blue until you can get to me;

 

hoping you will always find me

and that I will always keep you warm…