Hanque O . . .

for clare

I step out the door.
If I walk north I find woods.
If I walk east, south, or west I find woods.

I find whatever I want in the woods.
I find creeks and budding cherry trees,
morrels and mayapples.

I find a new wildflower
and an old favorite.
I can find anything.

I have nowhere to walk but in the woods
and I love them.
Sometimes I walk with a light step.

Not always.
But today, I believe I will.
I believe I have been given the gift of light-step.

When I walk up a steep hill
my hearts beats hard.
When I walk across a meadow my heart beats hard.

When I am standing still,
listening to these sounds which surround me
my heart beats hard.

I love everything.
I love Walt Whitman.
I love Ishmael and Qeequeg.

I love Jane Austen
and Leonard Cohen.
I love Van Morrison!

I love Bach.
I love the Dixie Chicks.
I love Elmore James and Etta James. I love.

Then, I catch my horse, old Sam.
I throw a saddle on his poor old bones
and we ride out.

He knows where we're going
and pays no attention to me whatsoever,
just puts his head down and goes.

He comes on a turkey hidden in the grass.
Jesse would have thrown a fit,
Sam just walks on.

We come to the first creek.
The second creek.
The third creek, Knobby Creek.

I stop, let the reins drop.
Drink you fool horse, I say.
No thanks, he says, we ain't even begun.

I guess he's right.
We ride on.
There's an armadillo.

There's a deer.
There are twenty deer.
There a coyote.

No quail, no more.
We come to the old house place
where Roscoe had so much fun

teasing Darly Boy.
Watch out for the old man, he'd say,
he's been drinkin again.

Darly Boy's eyes going wide,
unsure.
We ride on.

We come to the big spring,
which runs even during the worst of the drought,
and water-cress always grows

and once I saw a woodcock.
Thank you sweet one for this serenity.
We ride on.

We come to rattlesnake ridge, aptly named.
Sam takes me to the top
where I overlook the creek and the deer and the meadows

and my past and my future.
Sam is impatient with my visions and turns circles.
We ride through the cows.

They pay us no mind.
We walk to to each one that's lying down
and Sam nudges her

until she gets up on her knees
then hauls that rear end up and stretches her back
and looks at us

and says why did you do that, I was so comfortable?
We have to,
we have to see if your feet are sound,

if your eyes are clear,
your udders well sucked,
your baby near.

We ride on.
Here, where Roscoe saw a bear,
here, where we killed that six foot rattler.

Thank you for giving me back this day.
We ride west now.
Home.

Sam picks up the pace, grain awaits.
We find a cow off to herself,
that ain't right.

So begins a new story,
not for today.
At the barn I curry Sam, give him his blesséd grain

and turn him loose. He rolls on his back,
oh, he says, it feels so good!
I put up the bridle and reins, saddle, saddle blanket, spurs.

Unkink my aching knees.
Unkink my aching back.
Check the cow in the barn, the calf.

I see the old barn, the corrals, the old fences,
the water tanks.
I see ridge after ridge after blue ridge

to the horizon, and beyond.
I see America
like so few can even imagine.

I work this day
until there is no more day to work.
I watch the sun flatten on the horizon and set.

I walk to my little house in the woods.
I pause
at an old burnt-out stump of oak

and reach in and retrieve
a sheaf of folded pages, poems.
I don't need to read them, I know them by heart.

But I do read them.
Are they poems of love?
Damn straight they're poems of love.

Envy me these poems.
I listen and look and everything
is bright and clear

even in this last light.
I give thanks
and put these worn pages away in my old reliquary.

I give thanks,
though I cannot give enough thanks for this new serenity.
This is not a dream.