WHITE OAK (Quercus alba) in Ohio Country

DEPARTURE TREE

The sound of a farmer knocking
on the wood of his kitchen table . . .
you can hear the fact that the truth
of love is never lost.

Physical things,
some precious,
some more like habit,
come and go,

but the sound of knuckles on worn wood
somehow remains the same. His grandfather
made it, his father made it, and knowing
full well his wife no longer hears it,
and that neighbors in houses
standing in fields they once farmed
together do not care to hear it,
he makes it now alone. Then he stops, listening,
looking down into his morning coffee.

His father used to tell him the story
of how, when the settlers first
came here to clear and plough the land,
what enchanted the natives most
was the taste of their sugar.

As a boy, he always
wondered by what sound,
by what word, they would
have called it?

The sound of voices . . .
Thank god for radio. The price
of soybeans and corn.

White oak. The straight, tight
grain of long, dry summers. Black
worm holes that a man of words might
ponder. All the polish of work
that breathes, folding into the rich fields
of the present moment.

He touches the wood,
still hearing his grandfather’s voice
preaching to his father,

“Even God’s gotta have a stick with two sides.”

They were talking about the government,
then. War. Freedom. Money.

Some things are always the same.

Taking the metal cup off
the cooking stove, spirits
rising with the smell of boiling
black coffee, he shakes his head
and asks out loud of himself,

“When the cup is broke
and no more use, where
does the circle go?”

He can still hear them laugh . . .
That’s how they talked.

“Sweets are always the first thing missed
and the last to be forgotten.”

| download DEPARTURE TREE mp3 [ 2.4 Mb] |
recorded in the EAGLE CAP WILDERNESS,
w/ a HERMIT THRUSH, one of my favorite singers . . .

BACKGROUND: HERMIT THRUSH (Catharus guttatus)
http://bit.ly/QpwMZE Returns to Wallowas at 1400 m. in
May. W/ #ClimateCrisis, competes w/ Robins

FIREWEED POEMS please preview
[opens in new window]

Follow @cliffcrego