In apt darkness chasing him, in mountains where great gorge, lake
and river give up daylight with deep regret, his shadow hangs itself
forever, the evening hawk gliding mute as a mountain climber at grade,
leaving in our path the next hikerÕs awed-quick silence, stunned breath,
second look upward on frozen eyes and drifting wings caught forever.
From Yesterday he comes, from Far Mountains only Time lets go of, under
wings steady as scissors as thermals gather, not sure the joy is his, or ours.
So much light falls down from him, from wing capture, from his endless
fleeing of the globeÕs universal gravitation, and our genuflection, we feel
prostrate. World-viewed incandescence, sun under his wings with quick volley,
slipping through a hole in the sky, lilting the soon-gray aura without a sound,
the evening hawk performs above us. To look in his eye would bring back volcano,
fire in the sky, a view of the Earth Earth has not seen yet, Krakatoa lit a second time,
or one wayward comet turning inward on a dime just for performance sake.
Dowser on the River
Downriver a sudden
wash spills grubs, white
worms, into the quick rush.
Stones, too, hurl
into the fray, like infantry
and horse soldiers out of bush.
The rain is gone
overhill half a day
and aches its echo on the earth.
This, of course,
is my own war, this drive
to be alone, separatist seeking
shadows of the pine,
the cool, dark cells of old trees
flattening like choice rooms by the banks,
and the phantom foe
sleek as a jet under surface.
He turns to watch my boots stumble
on the rock skelter
laced with lichen and mossed
strains. If he has laughter, it floats
away faint as photographs
at the back end of an old manÕs
mind. I trust that he neither laughs
nor cries in his world,
that once he noses upstream,
feels the power gauging his flanks,
knows the message
burning like new stars
in the sanctity where his eyes dwell,
he will forget why I
am in this shadowed recess:
that a secret spawning calls us both
from the center
of the earth, the rhythmÕs merge
divining where the river starts itself.
Excursion
December gave us both a gray day,
thick as hardpan, sitting-down thick,
a neutral sadness running pole to pole,
a day that cried for work or laughter.
Work wins out, I told son James,
barely three and barely to my thigh.
I dressed him for the full adventure;
gloves soft as strung rabbitÕs neck,
stocking cap puffed out of lamb,
jacket thick with duckÕs outside,
a twist of blue knotting under chin,
two-ply boots denser than a tire.
Jamie leaned penguinish, starchy tight,
not quite sure of feet or balance point,
where the fulcrum of his day angled,
what could tip him this way or that.
I sat him, nugget of a boy, deep in the van
among chainsaw, rip ax, six-pound maul,
and the pair of blunt wedges I had worn
feverishly down through full reams of trees.
Oh, James likes iron, how it calls attention
to itself, hidden core ringing at his feet,
the hard touch remembered on cold days,
surfaces demanding the sweat of hands.
He likes iron forcing its way in or through,
iron beating on or back in brittle echoes,
that sprouts handles and odd points
and sharp edges; iron changing shapes
Of shapes, moving together or ever apart,
iron crying for the sweet will of muscle.
James comes bountied to move earth,
to carve pieces to his wanting, his need.
He comes magnetic. Tools move to him,
are drawn by his hands, heartÕs thirst,
shoulder coming poised behind the ingot,
with the shaking that little boys give off.
Some mongerÕs fire simmers in his eyes;
his lungs have bellow burst, puff of dream.
A dynamo hums in him, sings, trembles
down the limbs he brings to tasks,
a flywheel set in motion, gearage grab.
He clanged and banged and rang aloud
in the back of the van, echoing himself
among harsh tools, rang hard as them,
wavered as a tuning fork to dayÕs wand,
gave me in the driverÕs seat fair music
of the shop, beat of the forge at fire,
early shape of man in the ringing light
of coming on to size, pig iron breakout
from the harvest of heat, furnace essence,
the brazier soul coming through a sense
of fire, son where the welding works.
Oh, we bend here in a parade of tasks,
endless marching to orders we are born
ever to obey, the expense of our energies.
Each of us must light his own ample fire,
as James must light his. Failure is here,
not burning off the energy, not using up
all the waiting ghost that resides within.
Now James, my son, comes beside me
moving up in time, rattling with tools
he will spend his life with or always at,
the promise of something Excalibured,
the deeply driven driven out or drawn.
The hunger swell that swells some souls
must swell in him. At length he will move
the mountain in the way, will bend keen
tool edge on the steepest edge of Earth
as he moves Authurian in his life. But then
we came at last to dream and destination;
a wide field, a thick butt of maple tree,
monarch dropped along the avenue,
once the carrier of a hundred fallen nests,
donned a thousand rains, worst of storms,
wore scars of lightning zippered on its bark.
Into this field was brought treeÕs death.
And we come, James and I, to scavenge,
to pick as ants, gulls or high vultures
what is left of the dying or the dead;
a father and son looting what is left
of the mapleÕs being, faint yellow core.
A pair of deed-takers, two men of tools,
making hard music of twin cutters
as I whipped my saw into quick frenzy.
It loves good wood, slab of thick hides,
the inner rings hundreds high and counting.
James held his ground, the maul too heavy
to lift but handle operable as rudder stick,
able to steer the day to someplace on.
His eyes measured all three feet down
into the butt the sawÕs cut would hasten,
blinked at the majestic toss of sawdust
and chips hosing out beneath rapid chain,
figuring what it takes to earn the saw,
how much tool it was, what its sound meant
in a field where our maple died some more.
© Tom Sheehan
Bio note: Tom SheehanÕs Epic Cures, won 2006 IPPY Award. A Collection of Friends, nominated for Albrend Memoir Award. He has nominations for nine Pushcart Prizes, three Million Writers, and a Noted Story of 2007, and received the Georges Simenon Award for Fiction. Served in Korea, 1951-52. Has published 12 books. Just released is Brief Cases, Short Spans (from Press 53) and From the Quickening, (from Pocol Press, is due in the spring). He meets again soon for a lunch/gab session with pals, the ROMEOs, Retired Old Men Eating Out, (93/80/79/78). TheyÕve co-edited two books on their hometown of Saugus, MA, sold 3500 to date of 4500 printed and he can hardly wait to see them. TheyÕll each have one martini, heÕll have three beers, and the waitress will smile on them.