(Poet’s note: I recently revisited and worked on some poems I wrote about ranch life many years ago…the themes are a little darker and the writing style a little different)…

 

there was Whiskey too

he lent me his favorite book

which I forgot to give back

and so he took what was his

when I wasn’t there

 

I pictured him quickly entering

and quickly withdrawing

not touching or looking at anything except for his book

 

The Picture of Dorian Gray

inside the front cover

ripping and guarding the curled yellow pages underneath

was a note from someone­­­

indecipherable

in pencil

a life in pencil

 

he saddled and wrangled horses

never shaved­

had one of those moustaches you could twist

 

when he looked at the mountains

he looked through them

 

used to run with some women in Detroit they say

one of them bore his little boy

who drowned a year later at her feet

 

in a lake at her feet

 

Saturday nights

he sat on the porch’s edge

and Whiskey drank his namesake down

 

until the flies would swat his hangover away

with the running horses the next day

praying for the headache to leave

 

so he can try and love himself

again

 

 karenhansonpercy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The day we discovered the apple tree

we crawled on our knees to gather the ones that had dropped;

our fingers traced the softened pock marks, the partially round, the one-sided and the distorted—

each apple a life that deserved a complete and loving examination

as any candidate bound for cobbler should be.

And for the ones still clinging to the tree,

we discouraged the bees from their surface clutch

and linked our hands together so as to make a step

from which to reach the apples aloft.

Those too received their seasonal inspection

and the bucket swelled from sunken to round;

some too petite too peel, others with their spoiling divets—

not one unable to give at least,

a fingernail bite of bitter sweetness

of which we had many—

a bowl filled with tiny, sour cutouts to spread around the bottom of the pan;

the top of course, a mixture of oats and sugar, flour and butter

and one egg whose shells we extracted with surgical precision

from the awaiting, jumble of flavors.

Its marriage with the oven soon then did flood the house

in ardor

so that later,

we could eat each piece of unduplicated deliciousness

as if we had anything to do with it.

The lavender this summer
grew so high and thick
that within the purple, sprouting flesh
a tangled waltz of other grasses grew
so high and thick too.

Thank you
for the the assault of sweetness
when I do what my grandfather did
and watch the mountain shadows move
from my scything seat above the sod;

I’d like to think we float together
he and I
and that his hand rests on my back
while we look out over the rendered rows of silage
and the softened arc of water raising the tall
tall corn…

I’ve known you for a year now

white freckled horse with your limpet mane.

 

For a year you have been standing there by the fence–

maybe an eternity by that fence,

self-cornered near the barbed filament

always facing the mountains.

 

Sometimes you shift, I’ve noted;

never subject to the wind.

 

Yes,

sometimes you shift

and I’d like to know

what moves you to amend your bearing?

To look up without raising those eyes?

 

Once, I saw you standing that constant way

cool and still in the loafing shed

just because it’s there;

your head still low,

but not for sadness.

 

And when I pass you on foot

it is the same

save that you lean into me

as if we shared a secret.

 

Do they know what they have

the proprietors I never see–

the ones who keep your ribs from jutting

and your field from turning grey?

 

Do they know that there are words in your unsettling composure;

whispers from a tranquility millions seek to match;

wisdom from watching the encoded purpose of colonies colonizing?

 

Tell me

quiet, unmoving horse:

 

are they the lives of absented people

scattered about your cerise skin?

 

He’s right,
it is windy,
but there are no tornadoes.
So when he comes down the stairs with his flashlight
both scared and trying to save me
we consider the dark clouds and determine them benign.
I think about how much taller he is now
than this morning
and so he sleeps next to me;
Miller Moths and their soft thuds building in the swirl of the fan above.
He surprises me with his sticky, limp hand–
the upward palm and curled fingertips which against my better judgement
he neglected to wash just a few hours or a lifetime ago.
And who am I kidding?
The prince of campouts and sprinklers and three or four muddied outfits per day
breathes so perfectly.

There is no better judgement.

I was raised to hold a gun the right way

and use it

and to eat what I killed.

But I turned off the pot before it sang to a boil,

kept the blender on low so as not to startle;

made the children whisper.

I turned up the towel to stare at you;

dropped the long straw with some earthy concoction

towards your gaping, skyward beak

equally mad at, and in awe of your mother

for her two day absence and her ability to get you this far.

I am sorry and not so sorry for how they circled around you

on the ground as you tried but couldn’t take flight,

and I am sorry but not sorry for the way they hover still

over your shaky torso and wet down

(resulting from the insecure grip of the cat’s mouth).

The cat—who already wolfed down a mouse for supper

perhaps thinking we didn’t notice,

the cat—who once we brought home in the same manner;

cradled in a warm blanket-nest with her tiny mouth receiving temperate drops of milk

from the well-intentioned hoverers…

and when the mower uncovers a den of mice

or a burrowing snake,

when the birds hit the window

or a starling takes flight because we cupped it in our fanatical hands,

I consider the notion

that a rifle in one hand

and a stranded sparrow in the other,

are allowed to reconcile.

KarenHansonPercy