03-06-2019, 10:55 AM
A War in the Forest
I sat down on a rock
next to an overturned tree
that used to stand tall like a siege tower
when I was a kid
and we used to have battles with the neighbors
that lived on the other side of the woods
down what was then not yet called
Old Oak Trail,
and saw a torn rabbit festering there
in flies
and not yet artifacted into clean bone
that I could take home
or hang on a shrub
as some lean midsummer
voodoo decoration.
It was a breeze that came onto the leaves
and over me
that had me imagine
and rather wonder how much
our ambitious funning was
not unlike the real-life struggles
of hungry day and night struggles
in the woods of creatures
left to tangle in games
for which there're no rulebooks
or crimes of war,
and no history in which to invent
a fable humans know as history.
There was that time Samantha Wilkins
hit Joseph K. in the head with a brick
and was taken to the hospital,
and still has that cracked head to this day,
though no such childhood recollection
accompanies C. W. Campbell's uncle's
dog who went into the woods alone
to die a dog's death
after a lengthy seven year career
as family pet,
or the broke rabbit's skull
that will no longer exist
in my memory come September.
There are more pressing things and stories
of loss to tell than of the many
hostile families robbed of their
generations in silent leaf fields
where the sound of a giant falling
rings like a midnight bell
on deaf ears of sheer chthonic crawlers,
fur dragging across the dictionless dirt
and leaves of meaningless graves.
No language holds that urgent legend intact
or senses any more fear than blood-circulating
chemicals can carry overground.
What harsh nostalgia
can figure with some unknown possum
dying of a runagate disease never discussed
by man when the snows melt
and the spring comes
and I sneak to the fishpond
that the new neighbors own?
Oh how I'd throw myself from those
breathing trees to pull my adversaries
from go-carts and fourwheelers
and knock from their hands
bb guns with the crude spears and vampire hunter
stakes I carved with my friends with rocks.
How I laid on my stomach
and made love to the ground
in memories barely remembered
and not with peepingtom squirrels
or befuddled ants and termites
or future-scrying vultures,
us ignorant bumpkins erroneously label buzzards,
to violate my old gross delight.
What wordless thoughts do their reactions think,
the animals sharing my time outside reason?
From what moods do they
rip the insentient guts of their rivals,
and can an infant suck its thumb
with such relish
as predators
not wrought for individuation?
What doggerel lust can
outsimple the panting meter
of a mounting beast's
whitewater eyes?
I can't think any family feud
without tradition,
and erect no bones
as monument to the Mystery-
mindless of the chemical warfare of the flesh.
I mark no memories in the trees,
where no initials are etched,
no love only war
sinks with seed.
No hauntings last
when no future grazes.
I get up and walk.
We must make sense.
I sat down on a rock
next to an overturned tree
that used to stand tall like a siege tower
when I was a kid
and we used to have battles with the neighbors
that lived on the other side of the woods
down what was then not yet called
Old Oak Trail,
and saw a torn rabbit festering there
in flies
and not yet artifacted into clean bone
that I could take home
or hang on a shrub
as some lean midsummer
voodoo decoration.
It was a breeze that came onto the leaves
and over me
that had me imagine
and rather wonder how much
our ambitious funning was
not unlike the real-life struggles
of hungry day and night struggles
in the woods of creatures
left to tangle in games
for which there're no rulebooks
or crimes of war,
and no history in which to invent
a fable humans know as history.
There was that time Samantha Wilkins
hit Joseph K. in the head with a brick
and was taken to the hospital,
and still has that cracked head to this day,
though no such childhood recollection
accompanies C. W. Campbell's uncle's
dog who went into the woods alone
to die a dog's death
after a lengthy seven year career
as family pet,
or the broke rabbit's skull
that will no longer exist
in my memory come September.
There are more pressing things and stories
of loss to tell than of the many
hostile families robbed of their
generations in silent leaf fields
where the sound of a giant falling
rings like a midnight bell
on deaf ears of sheer chthonic crawlers,
fur dragging across the dictionless dirt
and leaves of meaningless graves.
No language holds that urgent legend intact
or senses any more fear than blood-circulating
chemicals can carry overground.
What harsh nostalgia
can figure with some unknown possum
dying of a runagate disease never discussed
by man when the snows melt
and the spring comes
and I sneak to the fishpond
that the new neighbors own?
Oh how I'd throw myself from those
breathing trees to pull my adversaries
from go-carts and fourwheelers
and knock from their hands
bb guns with the crude spears and vampire hunter
stakes I carved with my friends with rocks.
How I laid on my stomach
and made love to the ground
in memories barely remembered
and not with peepingtom squirrels
or befuddled ants and termites
or future-scrying vultures,
us ignorant bumpkins erroneously label buzzards,
to violate my old gross delight.
What wordless thoughts do their reactions think,
the animals sharing my time outside reason?
From what moods do they
rip the insentient guts of their rivals,
and can an infant suck its thumb
with such relish
as predators
not wrought for individuation?
What doggerel lust can
outsimple the panting meter
of a mounting beast's
whitewater eyes?
I can't think any family feud
without tradition,
and erect no bones
as monument to the Mystery-
mindless of the chemical warfare of the flesh.
I mark no memories in the trees,
where no initials are etched,
no love only war
sinks with seed.
No hauntings last
when no future grazes.
I get up and walk.
We must make sense.
