From the top of this windy wheatfield hill Wrapped in my old coat against the chill Comfortable in the white pickup from long use While the radio drones news. Down the toboggan run of Division Street Past the finest house in town, now empty, I motor on this wintry morning Tires slip as I hang left onto Highway Two No matter how careful on gas and wheel. Old commercial buildings stand hollow-eyed In spite of all their brick solidity The stability of this place is now the stasis of Hospital bed and graveyard. A light shines in the old pharmacy Now administering fantasy and caffeine Sovereign remedies for modern ills Grocery store, beauty parlor, license office Bastions of the necessary, the desirable, the mandatory All the rest stand empty – old pizza parlors, repair shops Gone the hardware store, gone the diner It takes a long time to get past this Little half-deserted town Full of the husks of big ideas Desperately postponing the inevitable As we all do, even as this poem does, Not wanting ever to quite get to the sign That directs us to Grand Coulee Dam Not wanting to turn north at the sewage plant Where once the horse racing brought people from all around Where once a pleasant lake beguiled crazy bachelor To build cabins, now collecting the shite of Dam electricians and old people Some halfwit booster built a Dirtbike track and frisbeegolf course Here at the edge of the sewage. But who am I to deal in such impolite reckonings? My own sins are much the same, relate me to This place – Never satisfied, always scanning the sagebrush horizon For the promised line of cottonwood trees, feckless, Never finishing what I start, given to Wishful thinking, self important – Nonetheless, I turn left Climbing little hills, barely seeming hills, Wheat stubble coming through the snow in Corduroy patches like worn out pants Holy old George Washington’s silhouette portrait Reminds me to never tell a lie and to Hang on to that dollar bill, our natural religion. Through the freezing fog the Boot tree looms Giant cottonwood filled with shoes of Long departed track teams, Two ravens pick old bones Ruined windmill, obsolete water-bringer. A shadow is on my heart, we’ve reached The crest of the hill, high water mark of giant floods All downhill from here, past the two farmhouses That never show signs of life, into the mouth of The canyon, down through a gash in the rock Black basalt worn like broken teeth Dark fir tree incongruous after the open plain Exiled here far from the sea, last of their kind So the old lie says, that once thronged A living river, still here they are Carrying life and spreading seeds to the wind In despite Here in the cold canyon shade, Here where the sun never shines Here in the last refugium of life As it has been Springs of water from the rock Chthonic caves along these sleeping Rock walls, Amelanchier flowers, Wild turkeys strutting by the cottonwood stream, Shelter from the wind. But now, finally, the moment I’ve been postponing Desperately directing my mind to other things Pale waters pool below me, Concrete obscenity shining bright, Drowned towns, watery graveyards, disappeared forests, Mechanical victories, electrical sublime, eighth Wonder of the world (as the shit-heel small town lawyers had it) Annihilator of dream time, bringer of onions and Plutonium. Lights glare on the pooled water I pass ticky-tacky palaces of retired engineers Waiting for death in the sand and the sagebrush, graveyard conveniently at hand A junkyard, a church no one attends, Crumbling concrete block disaster Broken down cars, more empty shops. Sits-in-the-middle still sitting Though the waters have filled Rattlesnake Canyon, and the rock. I try and remember, if I ever knew, As I pull up to the guard shack to show My picture, What the hell was Coyote really after?
Snow Creek
Snow creek, camas creek Creek of cottonwoods, place of rushing water The snow has not come this year Camas long vanished, the wheatfield bare In the warm December rain Cottonwood roots delve the Height of a man, seeking water And when the water table drops they die And stand awhile tall and white Bleaching in the sun and the wind The two forces before us The two forces after us The two forces that will shape this land After wheatfields, after the towns Already drying like tumbleweeds As the wind loosens the root Half empty as the people drift away Or huddle playing cards in the only coffeeshop Place of the wild geese Place of good intentions Where are your snows? Where are your vanished camas? Creek of drying cottonwoods, creek of silent waters.
Lochailort
In a dream, a voice saying: Sound of water, water from the spring, The voice of angels, sound of water Soul of water, water from the burn, the loch, the muir Angels all around me the wise man says Sound of water voice of angels Water messages In a dream dreaming by the sea loch Clear water golden water Black pool in the granite White foam churned by the wave.
Black Ships
Black ships on the beaches of Troy Njal’s family burning around him Doomed raids on the old fortress A rebel waltz bereft of joy Manhattan has not fallen Our weapons rust and tarnish Gordon Kaufmann’s glorious temples To the gods of concrete, dynamo, and steel Crumble before our indecision While we waver at the thought of return. On old farms long given as bounties We will not sit royally, not long. Kale and cat-tail, nuts and berries Sustain us once again Come salmon, come seaweed Always throng our streams Always cover the beach by our place Make us rich in the treasures of poverty Bring the dance to life Bring this life to the dance While we admire the lovely dancer. In the breaking dawn of this wintry day Tired of talking the snow Singing the hoar frost clinging to branches Dazzling blue-white light leaped skyward As I gazed, wonder-struck out the glass door Leaped skyward and faded, Came again and again As the transformer shorted and burned on The lonely pole across the frozen wheatfield My own personal supernova omen Early morning apparition to warn Of the impending day, as white clouds Cover the moon. I’m tired of the cold, tired of feeling old I’d rather write one of MacDiarmid’s Long rambling plagiaristic rants Copy pop song lyrics into a high school notebook Make poetry slam witticisms, light as thistledown Sentimental as the moon, piquant as dinner In a trendy restaurant. Nothing holds us here among these Camas-haunted wheatfields Nothing but springtime’s biding, Schoolbooks, and money. I pray that our fleeing is not in winter, Not in summer’s heat, pedaling Borrowed bicycle far from water. May we make our journey in springtime Flowers springing around our feet Dainties for the horses Or in autumn’s crisp clean air Resting under golden falling leaves Weather perfect for walking.
Sagebrush
Silver friend I’m sorry to always moan About dim dreich cabins Rock built in your wide caress You’re no misery grisly grown – But glabrous glamourous perfume To my eye Fringed golden silver Bent noble grove where no tree else Moonlight flame above the draw Wormwood of old fools They do not know the heaven scent Of your crushed branches Though it fills the air in protest As they drag battleship chains Rattling through your embrace Have they slept in your welcome bed At the end of long days? Where the deer make their hide Where the quail hide their young Have they filled their heart with holy crackling clean Heat bursting with mountain mahogany Purple flames as the smoke dogs curl around their legs? But my poor one note song is always of our loss – Hold on silver friend against fire, poison, bulldozer power That would sweep you away and leave us, In place of your holy incense, Wheatfield and cheatgrass. I would trade all those French fries and onion rings For the taste of your bitter bite, a crust of alkali wildness Poached from the Land of the Big Idea.
Witching Hour
Restless in the wizardly quartz screen glow Mind teeming with vague notions Drowned worlds, dead oceans The sound machine roar covers Footsteps of the cat Wordless wailing of lost children Incriminations of a mind soured and drawn No stone on my belly the sacred words to anchor But the booze and junk food Seethe and roil Heave and rumble Lurch and thrawn Half dreams of blood and oil Scramble through long eons ‘til the dawn Breaks the sky. Here we sit at the edge of the Edge of the dead wheatfield of the world This is where the dream ran out Where the exiles learned the limits of wishful thinking Of a better job, new life, new car Faithful friend’s unfaithful wife Vanished grandmother’s kitchen Dancing stilled in the blue glow Singing hushed, drawing smeared, poems incomprehensible. Sound of guns rattling from the school Pain pills, plastic titties, hopeless screwing Captured joyless on the screen Remote control toys watch endlessly from the sky Rain death upon the wedding. Bread drenched in poison Sky smeared with smoke synthetic Mother’s milk from the machine.
Imbolc Morning
All day the buttery wind Blows away the snow All the triumphant lies That tell us what we know The quail, little chickens, Come for seeds we scatter. Under the ice, ground warms While we wait for spring Wait for planting Wait for flowers Look to harvest Look for things we scarcely know Wait the waitings of our kind Scratch for seeds beneath the snow.
Song of the Exiles
Oh green was the wood And soft was the wind On the day that we left you Our fortune to find. Then grey were the streets And hard was the wind Where we drifted and faded Like leaves in the greenwood Our fever, our hunger, our anger Our strong arm, our longing, our lonely We left amidst dirty snow and the rock Of the coulee, moaning the blues. For lost were the willows Vanished the birches My darlings, so graceful By the swift stained stream Lost were the faces Gone were the voices Vanished the bodies That could sing the old songs, Dance the meanings. Our work, our struggle, our worries Our possessions, our illusions, our pride Are all that is left us here in the suburb In the supermarket wheatfield, radio blaring pop. The hope was a swindle With nothing to show The promise has faded, Ruined in the dirty snow. So we look for our longing In the books full of names, Parade in fake tartan, Try to cheat at the game. But sweet was the greenwood And sweet were the songs On that day when we found you Freed from old wrongs.
The Road
The road is narrow, bordered with barley The cars are fast, flashing headlights No patience for tiddlers searching for history The tyres are thin The track is stony The route is predestined (Oh, rich despair) Oncoming traffic in middle of road A score of car slaughtered grouse Along the motorways’ heathery shoulder Hills emptied of houses, furrows of old fields, Flowery invaders crowd the highlands Food for dinosaurs, legacy of German botanists But no nineteenth century tour, this modern quest is low on petrol And at the farmstand in Fife I scare an old man in a Vauxhall Driving the wrong side His eyes tell the story, brought together on Our doubly predestined trajectory over all those miles of wandering Hurtling mad through roundabouts of industrial estates Dancing contrarywise with lorries The rope dance of single track through faery woods Hurtling down concrete terror chute Stop for Urqhhart’s shoving Germans Tesco tiger roll Nessie sandwich Our hosts are appalled at the distances we relate In our dusty land across the water Where road is narrow, bordered with wheatfields Where we drive seven hundred miles in a day Always looking for something new Eyes scanning the horizon for the pillar of fire and smoke The new job, new car, a new house, new shoes, the next big thing Land of Opportunity, Land of Promise Only a railroad ticket away, sagebrush streaming past the window, or three month’s walk, or we can get there Wednesday If we push it and the fuel pump holds. What will you find there? Old orchards full of dying trees An old house with broken windows The dry well, tattered posters from country fairs that will never come again Vague memories of the world that was Fear of the wind that is coming Comfort in love, and friendship in despite.
Island of Wolves
Long hunger and loneliness of abandonment, Silent bells, prayers dwindle in the old stone church Hope almost extinguished. The people Scattered on the wind, spindrift blowing along the empty beach. Shell of sheiling husk of houses ghost of old songs What response from the cloud carrying sky? Silent multitudes gathered teaming around the glowing screen. Who will restore the holy places? Who will build up broken walls? Who will sing forgotten songs? The arms that lifted the stones The voices that sang the waves and chanted The power of wind and storm Are sent across seas and time, lying silent under alien stones, strange trees, different waters. Will they come again? Gather stones, rally wind, brave seas, restore empty places Fill them with children and the sound of work. Long and hard the dead hand drove us Long and far, and hard To these dusty lands where there is no sea No old songs but the cheap commercial jingle, No work except the job Half filling pockets with debased coin From the Land of the Big Idea But we could take back a thousand islands with our love Which we have forgotten In our strength Which we have neglected With our voices New and old breaking into vanished song.
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