Man, time made rock
into gold oil, but not here –
little maggots on the farm
were fascinating for the boys
One generation went to
Remember the dirty girl and boy in a basin by the pond, with grandmothers
The water ran till it was black
Green time smacked its paws to birthing October
the vines late that summer, and
cold mistral, methodic potioning wind
shone fixed and strange on the horizon;
the girl and boy ate grapes
watching the wind spackle a
leek-colored sky
Remember the tine yell of the hunters
when they left in morning, their
boots were laced high
They sped. Came
back with nothing. The trees
whittle from morning till night
the trample fog and fodder farm,
the triple cough of the calves in birth
the skies murking
the snap and bundle of rain cloud
Fever, then war – the first boys died quick, they died quick. They died, and the parents
did not grieve. The parents remembered. They would keep that child
with the life-long of new births
and those who survived
And in the morning after,
there came a procession
as profound as the Dance of
Death, but nothing like it
A marching collie dog,
black and white, a tractor with a trailer of corn and wheat
an old man, a young woman, on
Dutch bikes, and another dog, of an unknown breed
on the harsh land, in their
slow way, crossing the earth
And then it broke. None were friends. The farmer lay his
corn near the barn
the old man, the young woman
were not together
but the two dogs, friendless
and knowing it, made zigzags in a field of buried bones
-Christopher
Ketcham