Corydon & Alexis Poem by D. A. Powell

shepherdboy? not the most salient image for contemporary readers
nor most available. unless you're thinking brokeback mountain:
a reference already escaping. I did love a montana man, though no
good shepherd

rather: a caveman, came spelunking into that grotto I'd retreated to

what light he bore illumined such small space—physically, temporally

and did he have a grove of beech trees? no, no grove
but together we found an old-growth stand of redwood

we gouged each other's chests instead of wood: pledges that faded
he was not cruel nor I unwitting. but what endures beyond any
thicket?


example: he took me to the ocean to say farewell. I mean me: farewell
to ocean
the ocean, for that matter, to me. us both fatigued, showing signs
of wreckage

and that man I had loved stood back from the edge of things

he did not hold me

I expected not to be held

we all understood one another: shepherd understudy, ocean, me


and did he go back to his fields and caves? yes, but they were gone
strip-mining, lumber, defoliant, sterile streams: you knew that was
coming

weren't we taught some starched sermon: the pasture awaits us
elsewhere


back up a moment: the forest you mentioned—remember, instead of a grove?

untouched for the most part. some human damage, but not ours

we left no mark, not there in the midst of those great trees:
not in the concentric rings that might have held us far past living

instead, I put that man, like so many others, on paper—
a tree already gone from sight where once it had drawn the eyes
upward: the crest of a mountain. crumpled thoughts, crumpled love


shepherdboy, do you see the wild fennel bulbs I gathered for you
olallieberries, new-mown grass, the tender fruits of the coastal fig?

I put them on paper, too, so fragile. for nothing is ever going to last


For Haines Eason