Monday, December 15, 2008

This Is The Very Field Where I Imagine a Good Death To Be

Orofino, means fine gold
And a good place to be born
In the night under northern lights
At the crux of four colors
Black white red yellow
Within hairs to a pillar
During a moon when the calves grow hair
To when the plums grow scarlet
A blue silo indicates that pines whisper here
That farm cats and dairy cows roam side by side
With dark apples
In their eyes
And yes,
Their tongues trough
And field
Rough
Openly
I am not shy
While shoveling
Regions of the yard
Where vast daffodils were
Underappreciated by mother,
But due to pity
Still made it to a drinking jar on the sill,
Where it wilted in all whiteness bled.
Oblivious to parachutes,
Knowing well the fateful grip of a four-year-old’s
Peanut butter and pinesap fingers

Even the grasshoppers could not escape
Feeling around the creases of a warm
Frond—a darkness we fashioned
Like a mini train car from a tobacco tin.
Perforated from nail punches
They kicked around
I see inside—
Kidnap!
In hopes of trout. Rainbows
Of them. All we caught were crawdads
I took one.
Down the mountain grade
And 13 hours west
Exhibit A in a bowl,
Where he chewed his leg off
Under magnification
After every failed effort to escape.
Grandpa found him on his way out
The crustacean dragging the baggage of his body
To the nearest exit—
The front door teasing
His limbs
I know this now
Someone should have stopped me
From saving him

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

i like this. wonderful opening. i get lost ( in a good way ) in the middle-y part and am found again when the old grasshopper gets a new plastic home. Did it happen? And this way?

word verification: matra

L train said...

no. the grass hopper died for it was live bait in an idaho river.