Chouckhass

I tracked your mark in
the air today
with one finger, and thought, no one has done this
extraordinary thing
not in three hundred years, witness
your earthen fingers, unfamiliar,
slip, a little
where the twin wolves' heads, conjoined,
met, reflected, at the neck, anchored each other
in the air, in the earth,
and I thought,
why was this, that you lingered,
long after everyone you loved had vanished,
wandering Warwick, in the Dutch valleys, the English valleys,
a living ghost, whose breath battered softly against the mountains,
whose dug-deep roots were so strong
they refused to pull free.
Did you lose the other yourself in the lakes' fog
when you faced evil
face to face, alone, the sole survivor?
Or did you set foot on wet leaves here, slipped between
flutter-died dogwood blossom dances
wreathed round a loving neck, and an
apple seed cradled, lifted high, in the scented body of
an infant, poxed, dying, lost to your trust?
I lay your mark down in my hammock strung limp
between two trees, rooted deep in this forest, in this sweet grief-orchard
I give you all of Warwick valley still open to your wandering silent
fogged-bound feet,
I give you Stoney Creek, the only anthem we share,
I give you the sweet nectar of your own apples to drink,
I give you a wolf-head to eat.


Published University of Michigan Portfolio, 2005