Collecte Works (13 page)

of the century…Grandpa forward

from the shop, “Ought to have a machine.”

They came at a pace

to go to war.

They came to more:

a leg brought back

to a face.

I doubt I'll get silk stockings out

of my asparagus

that grows too fast to stop it,

or any pair of Capital's

miracles of profit.

To see the man who took care of our stock

as we slept in the dark, the blackbirds flying

high as the market out of our pie,

I travel now at crash of day

on the el, a low rush of geese over those below,

to see the man who smiled

and gave us a first-hand country shake.

A monster owl

out on the fence

flew away. What

is it the sign

of? The sign of

an owl.

Gen. Rodimstev's story (Stalingrad)

Four of us lived off half an acre

till grandfather traded it

for a gallon of liquor.

White Guards flogged father to death,

I studied to save

man's sweet breath.

Birds' mating-fight

feathers floating down

offspring started

toward the ground.

From my bed I see

the wind willow

the grass.

From my head

in feathers comes

a gas.

I think of a tree

to make it

last.

Asa Gray wrote Increase Lapham:

pay particular attention

to my pets, the grasses.

Pioneers

Anson Dart pierced the forest,

                                              fell upon wild strawberries.

Frosts, fires, land speculation, comet.

                                                      Corn to be planted.

How to keep the strawberries?—

                                              Indians' sugar full of dirt.

How to keep the earth.

Winnebagoes knew nothing

of government purchase of their land,

agency men got chiefs drunk

then let them stand.

On the steamer
Consolation

                           came Dart's wife and daughters,

already there his sons and three sides of the house.

In the Great Bitter Winter a rug closed the side

                                                that was bare.

For mortar they bored out a white-oak log,

pounded enough corn for a breakfast Johnnie cake

by rising—all sons—at 4:00.

Could be more, could be warmer, could be more.

Sun, turn the earth once more.

Between fighting fourteen nations' invading troops

and starting the first thousand-acre farms

       we hungered,

an effort to rise or stand up straight.

A tractor has seven hundred fifteen parts.

               I studied—

I'm a Morvin from the Eraya tribe—

                             learned all about oil and sand

the whole inner essence of the core.

Gorky recalls Professor Hvolson

                                            lecturing on Einstein,

clung with his hands to the pulpit,

swayed back and forth from lack of food.

Then—the first one!—red wheels

                           dipped, met the earth.

Red wheels gave the earth a new turn.

Well, spring overflows the land,

floods floor, pump, wash machine

of the woman moored to this low shore by deafness.

    Good-bye to lilacs by the door

    and all I planted for the eye.

    If I could hear—too much talk in the world,

    too much wind washing, washing

    good black dirt away.

Her hair is high.

Big blind ears.

    I've wasted my whole life in water.

    My man's got nothing but leaky boats.

    My daughter, writer, sits and floats.