Reply of Leaves: Poems from Up the Chewuch
Chapbook published by Magic Mountain Press.
Copies available for purchase.
Up Twisp River
Five dogs--
eager, taut-muscled hounds,
lunged up Twisp River
led
by the cougar's scent
on the heavy, sodden snow.
Imagine the chase.
Three miles up
they encircled her at the river's edge,
in haunch-deep, bloody snow--
a deer leg, ragged
in her claws.
She leapt up
a shaggy-limbed pine,
stretched upwards, towards the somber, slate-colored sky
and clung there.
Two men
followed the noise from transmitter collars,
the shill yelps, the frantic baying,
to the scene of snarl and scream:
One man
raised his rifle,
aimed;
held it steady.
Her long, tawny body
dropped
through the cool
turbulent air.
Imagine
that cougar's final growl
as a futile sort of prayer for wings,
or mercy--
just as improbable,
and as rare.
The Last of June
All night
the last of June blew
through the trees.
We listened
to broad maple leaves chattering ceaselessly
--heard the lean aspens sigh
and stammer.
All night
the birds that call into the darkness
were muffled
by the boisterous gossip
of twigs and boughs.
Better to have risen
and gone out
into that din
to find the place where two young bucks
pressed flat
the tall, thick grass.
We could have rested
in the hush of underbrush
while
the last of June
blew steadily.
Early March
Beneath the eaves of the house
a narrow band of matted grass begins
to reclaim a past life.
Green blades gather
upright, en masse—
revived after the smother of winter months,
the long press of snow's broad palms, numbing
and ponderous.
Here too are brittle carcasses of wasps
not long ago cast out of heated rooms.
Their empty shells lie mute,
duped by the season's late, lingering chill.
Perhaps it is the scent of soil, finally
exposed against the south foundation of the house
that summons me to sit
among copper-colored shrubs, abundant
with swelling leaf buds.
Even the blue-eyed cats have come out to prowl;
they consider themselves concealed by barren bushes.
Together we sit
and have a look at the snow pulling back—
oh, if only these were winter's final hours!
ABOUT TAZ
Tabby cat
curled
in a circle of ceramic:
quite comfortable in cobalt and curve.