Issue 3:1 | Non-Fiction | Tom Sanders

5 Poems

by Tom Sanders

Cicada'a Cycle
For all those who work toward abstract goals

Yes, the chirring is insistent from the wing-backed, white-bellied creature
Lying on its back in the drive.
And before such mishap, she struggled
Seven years in the dark
Before parting the dirt and climbing forth
On the tops of Kentucky fescue.

And when she rested on the plum tree bark,
Split skin ready to unfold those wings,
Did she know it would come to this?
Just one more dead bug to scare Jill
And Little Foot,
Playing among the sculpted boxwoods
By the white gravel drive?
Or did she believe this seven-year plague
Would bring, wholly, beauty,
Endless whirring flight in the soft Kentucky air?

If we could all fly all the time,
A spot of blue skimming above the still pond,
Or great auburn wings
Soaring in the autumn afternoon,
Life might be better.
But there is certain beauty in being who we are,
Even if it means grubbing in the earth for seven years
For one ambivalent moment in the sun.

---

True Aim

I.

There was no way in hell I could hit that woodpecker--
Red head, twenty feet up
In a hundred-year oak,
arms crooked at odd elbows--
gnarled flesh.
But I aimed the gun anyway,
Accounting for drop,
Six inches above his red spot
On the branch,
Jogging slightly to the left, then right.

The burst of CO2
Feathered out behind the slug,
Pushed past the rifling.
The lead dropped according to plan
And the bird, too
Like a sinner's soul without grace.

II.
I tied my shoe, one knee on concrete,
And remembered that bird--the first time.
The game was over, 10-9, after half an hour.
We'd been playing in the
Hanging heat of an inner city afternoon,
The chain link fence around the court
Behind a three-floor walkup,
Goal bolted to the back steps--
She an athletic fourteen,
Long legs, blond hair stringy with sweat.
Me older--thirty-five, bald,
A middle that showed a sedentary life.

I was taller, stronger, faster.
In the inside game I was unstoppable,
But she was earnest, wore winning
On her face—

“Won't let some guy my dad's age
Beat me at my game!--

We battled hard until
I pulled away, one point from victory,
Experience mastering youth and energy.
So I dropped back,
Taking shots I couldn't hit
And she the rebounds
Put back in graceful, long-armed arcs.
Until, nine-all, I pulled the trigger
From the three-point stripe,
Arms back, flailing recklessly,
Aimed at the goal but
No way in hell I'd hit it.

But of course I did,
Ball shot straight, no arc,

Ringing the rim
And bringing dusk down around our limbs.

III.
I see these accidents of intention
On a Venn diagram of living.
Within the shaded arcs
Where 'accident' and 'on purpose' join
Her eyes, cast downward to the Macadam,
The seams of the basketball, thrown wildly at the goal,
And the lifeless red spot of a woodpecker,
Spiraling downward from the
Great arms
Of a hundred-year oak.

---

Rain Crow

Long ago

We came in from the back way,
Voices quiet,
Across the hills as if we were native ourselves,
Feet tangled in honeysuckle and creeper,
Reading sign to find the way.

Halfway there was the reputed Indian burial mound,
Up at the top of Slip Hill,
A pile of rocks, probably the remains of a moonshine still
Or something more prosaic than the grave we thought.
Then, a hard fifty yards later, the buckeye tree.
Not a tree but the tree

You know. The tree over the hill
With those hard, brown jewels, fallen in October.

Dry autumn creek, deep gulleys from a dustbowl washout,
Grown over with foxbush and bois d'arc,
The hard scramble up the bank,

Kicking clay and gravel down in little landslides
Until the cornfield lay before us, down the bluff
That overlooked a permanent spring.

(The spring, actually. Geography in its particular.)

You always made us go this way,
Extra quiet, you shushed us at the last,
Not wanting the farmer to know we were there,
Choosing the anonymous route to the field
Where we searched hidden among the tall, dry cornrows,
Bright dry golden ears, peeking out of browned husks,
For the best,
Most perfect arrowheads.

Then, only when we were finished, you'd allow
The expedient of the blacktop,
Loud voices, laughter,
A measuring of our finds with what we'd found before.
It was then the rain crow flew over our heads,
Furtively himself, shy of our witness.

Had I noticed
I would have wondered if he were you.

---

Maxwellian Motion

For a moment now the mist
Will rise from the lake,
Hugging its surface like
Steam on a hot cup of coffee.
The breeze will stir it
Swirling like a reel toward
The dock and the world beyond.

In the distance, out on the highway,

Transfers roll by, roaring down 23,

A brute version of Maxwellian motion.

Like those trucks, we blow through living,

Content we're headed somewhere.

When this moment passes,

The mist will disappear in the hot sun,

The sound of trucks will blur into the

Chaos of the day.

---

Lotus Blossom
For Sara

Already it has started.

The distractions of aching body,
Stinging nose, and rough hands
From honest labor's effort
Remove the mind from living
In this moment.

Just beneath the surface

The lotus blossom blooms,

Its stem not yet having pushed its tip

Into this gaseous plane.

Where water and air meet

Is where the mind is,

Part consumed, attaching to the body,

Part straining to connect

With a world just beyond reach.

Only surface tension keeps the two apart.

It is a thin barrier,

This veil of intentions with

Which we cover ourselves.

Go deeper, or higher,

Lotus Blossom.

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