"Frame House" came out of a day trip to the Boardman House in Saugus, MA. It, like all "First Period" (1600s) houses in the colonies, was not built for show but for work. All the studs, lathing, beams are exposed. That reminded me of a body.  -SK
 
Frame House
(A Poem of 1600s Massachusetts)


The plane wears down the shingle more and more 
The shingle resists the attrition of its grain, but the force is too strong
He knew this day would come
And today the frame house will be complete
A full and whole farm - now that the house is done

The farmer planted the fields in May with his other boys
Good strong boys those ones  
And duly so the crops are now in
Harvest time – when the sowing comes to fruition 
Corn, Barley, downy flax -all raised goodly so to full maturity
Soon the reaping will inevitably come 
The scythe will cut down what is its due
But sever no greens (out in the fields, that is) – only russets and other autumn hues

The farmhouse has a longer cycle
Not subject to blade or the scavengers out there
It may last – God willing – maybe four, five hundred years
If he has built it well

The bore worm will inexorably take its toll
But only [God willing] when the house has come into right and proper age

Each drawing of the plane brings a moment’s rest
But from the sick room…another sound between every stroke
He did not time it right.

He remembers all the questions last year
“How does the fire know to go up the chimney to the sky, Father?"
"If I count the rings on the grain, can I tell where the tree’s story ended, Father?”
“Why do we draw the sap from the young trees as well as the old ones, Father?”

Soon this house will take its place with the family
Raised right…a strong young dwelling

The farmer now takes stock of all his labors’ fruits
A sturdy fireplace, the heart of his home
Tall flue – the lungs. Another stirring from the sick room.
Summer beam – that would be the spine
Joists would be ribs; and now he is on the cedar shingles 
Ah, those would be…the skin
Cedar is pallid now, but it (at least it) will get the chance to age

He surveys the numbered hatch marks connecting the house’s members 
There is a seven on the end girt, a seven on the collar beam, again on the corresponding purlin
Funny how those do not match with the pointed roof rafters
Never made it to seven

Math always the same – predictable and Godlike
But some things don’t add up

The house will be done by the time the leaves fall
And are blown about the yard by a stronger hand than the farmer’s
The door on this box will soon be closed 
And those still able will get on with the business of living

He walks the home's rectangular plot
That sick room was the first one of the house
Now the dust builds in generations, lying still

He will fit those shingles good and tight
To keep out the persistent gloom
But the bore worm will always find a way in

Lake Turkana


The salt stings their skin
The air weighs down on them arid and acrid
The Lake teases them with watery licks
Against the edges of…itself

Funny how some day others would call this the "Jade Sea" 
“Rock Crystal Sea” would be more like it

Warblers and wagtails fly by on their way to somewhere better
A sign meant to teach these other strange creatures?
Can't be...Man doesn't know symbolic thought yet...
Or that he has a name - Homo erectus - to know himself by

Sad they can't recall family before them:
Like "Lucy," the “African Eve," who puts that other Eve to shame
With sheer weight of years
And the burden of going it alone
The others (who could think of “Eve”) would not make a peep for 
Two million years 
And the ones who will some day call them smart don’t know they invented The Hunt only…
To eat

Still, no inkling these walkers have of the rich line from which they descend
The long blue-blood portrait gallery 
Of pedigree that they could claim were they yet wise enough
How their grandfather - too many times great to count - was Homo habilis,
The toolmaker, the first "Handy Man"
A term of pride when concert pianist and cabinet maker are not yet a dream
Nor do they know this lake, Turkana, is "The Cradle of Mankind"

They only know hunger

Crocodiles bear snaggle-toothed jaws waiting for another meal 
But they wait longer these days 
Kudus, hartebeests, and topis once ran the express train so regular 
That Man could pick his cut of meat on a given day 
Now he picks the rare meat down to the bone

The stints and the skimmer birds from Central Island would do for now
Would they not float off with Man footfalls
So that he'll have to make do eating crow
And here and there more bones - not kudu, only more hominids unburied
Like some perverse souvenir shop 
Some day eons hence Leakey will honor these remains
But now they only serve up no meat at all

Man now walks upright, but he might as well prostrate himself before the lava flows
And let his skin leather like the cracked earth

He bands together, though, to take Turkana's licks
Except one: Turkana Boy
Always was something different about that one
In the drought he could sometimes find water vesseled in a tiny succulent
Or show them where the mussels hide 

He seems to beckon them that way
Up the shore of the lake,
Why? Is there something there that is not here?
What force wants him to take them from here?
Can't argue like a biologist or a lawyer
Reason hasn't been invented yet

Erectus can't offer rebuttal either 
And, looking down at the family tree now scattered below his feet, 
He may now be reaching for the idea of hope two million years before fire 
So that some place better than this MUST be out there

And now they follow Turkana Boy, this Akhenaton of the lake,
Up the shore and down The Great Rift Valley
Forward into the continent, and some day Europe and Asia 
Across the Bering Straight 
Towards the unknown