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| photo by Sean D McCormick |
River Rock
He looked out the window at the gold grass plains,
and beyond their rolling miles,
the far, untouchable mountains hanging unseen;
something endless there always drew the eye but
he was glad there were a few clouds
to break up the forever blue of the sky.
It was hot in the cabin from the cooking,
but not as hot as it would have been
without the window.
He was proud of the window, right angles trued.
Next year he might get glass sent up
from Edmonton.
He was tired, and just sat and watched her
cutting up the potatoes and onions.
He liked to see her fingers dancing with the knife,
chopping the way he chopped firewood,
With absent concentration,
just to get it done and on to the next thing.
She felt his eyes and looked up smiling,
A strand of hair wet on her forehead.
He gave a grunt that didn't fool, went back to
sharpening his skinning knife while the light was good,
an endless job, done to be done again,
like all of them.
The baby was just learning to walk,
rambling around the one room as if
it were a giant’s castle, into everything,
sucking on a river rock to ease her gums.
He took it away, set it on the windowsill
and gave her a biscuit instead.
The prairie wind can't see just
The prairie wind can't see just
when the smoke stops blowing from the chimney,
nor the earth do more than swallow the emptied bundles
wrapped with care and laid within its open mouth,
any more than the hard-packed road feels his boots walking away.
Today the gold grass plains,
the far mountains and the forever blue
don’t know that potatoes and onions
aren't found here anymore.
aren't found here anymore.
The Edmonton glass is weathered shards and daggers
on the insensate ground.
On a cracked window frame,
...one smooth
odd-shaped river rock.
February 2011
Posted for OneShootSunday at the inimitable One Stop Poetry
