September 2015
I am a Quaker, organic gardener, visual artist of paper cutouts, and a retired librarian. When I was a child, I worked on my Amish/Mennonite grandparents' farm during the summers — using old time equipment such as gravity-fed buzz saws; I also did blacksmithing and I painted hex signs. Over the years I worked for Habitat For Humanity building houses; I finished my 100th construction two years ago, and now, at 67, I am still at it — tiring out the 20-year-old volunteers. My forthcoming collections include How to Be Silent (FutureCycle Press), God Is Not Amused With What You Are Doing In Her Name (Aldrich Press), and Dylan Thomas and the Writer’s Shed (Future/Cycle Press).
Goose Feathers and Farm Implements
1.
When I first lay on a goose-feather mattress
in my grandfather’s farm house, I sank
into earth like a seed . Cloud-like. It was
familiar as diving into bushels of leaves.
Waking up to rudeness of a rooster
and needles of light, all summer,
I was told feed the goose.
When grandfather butchered it
for a Charles Dickens-like meal,
I felt I’d betrayed it. I was sick for a month,
unable to sleep, especially in that bed.
I hid in the attic, crying to sleep
on a green army cot,
killing nightmare armies of my grandfather.
2.
In the attic, I found a round-top musty chest.
Being unnaturally curious, I unlatched it
and found letters bound in twine.
Light through the cross-breeze attic vents
angled like a goose’s neck.
3.
A wheat thrasher had multiple blades
staggered in such a way to cut,
so if one blade missed, another might not.
A pull-saw worked on gravity-feed.
You put wood at the top and a leather belt
tugged wood towards the saw
making two even divisions.
A person could lose a hand either way.
I dreamt gruesome ways to maim grandfather.
I had too much time on my hands.
Working sun-up to beyond sun-down
would cure me of that.
4.
When the sun cut through fog like a thrasher,
far off geese called out in the thickness.
The moon came out of the round-top chest
still wearing a white night-cap.
I was reading my ancestor’s mail
from the Revolutionary War.
Wind was thrashing fall leaves. It is strange
how time came to be both past and future.
When I read the letters, I fell into earth like seed.
I did not need a goose-feather bed.
1.
When I first lay on a goose-feather mattress
in my grandfather’s farm house, I sank
into earth like a seed . Cloud-like. It was
familiar as diving into bushels of leaves.
Waking up to rudeness of a rooster
and needles of light, all summer,
I was told feed the goose.
When grandfather butchered it
for a Charles Dickens-like meal,
I felt I’d betrayed it. I was sick for a month,
unable to sleep, especially in that bed.
I hid in the attic, crying to sleep
on a green army cot,
killing nightmare armies of my grandfather.
2.
In the attic, I found a round-top musty chest.
Being unnaturally curious, I unlatched it
and found letters bound in twine.
Light through the cross-breeze attic vents
angled like a goose’s neck.
3.
A wheat thrasher had multiple blades
staggered in such a way to cut,
so if one blade missed, another might not.
A pull-saw worked on gravity-feed.
You put wood at the top and a leather belt
tugged wood towards the saw
making two even divisions.
A person could lose a hand either way.
I dreamt gruesome ways to maim grandfather.
I had too much time on my hands.
Working sun-up to beyond sun-down
would cure me of that.
4.
When the sun cut through fog like a thrasher,
far off geese called out in the thickness.
The moon came out of the round-top chest
still wearing a white night-cap.
I was reading my ancestor’s mail
from the Revolutionary War.
Wind was thrashing fall leaves. It is strange
how time came to be both past and future.
When I read the letters, I fell into earth like seed.
I did not need a goose-feather bed.
©2015 Martin Willitts Jr