WALNUT FALLING
Had to shut the tractor down and take a break
in the humid shade of the orchard,
And in the buzzing, ringing stillness
heard
The first nut fall…
KEE KEE KEE
calls the she-hawk,
coursing for the kill;
And black and white magpies
Flit through the floppy walnut leaves-
A wind of mad noise;
But I,
in the ringing stillness
Heard,
The first nut
Fall.
LIVING NIGHT
Open the box;
Take out a match.
Strike fire from the hearthstone.
Twist and turn the burning stick
With slow fingers and watch
Wettish red turn to crinkled black,
The curl of tortured wood
As flame creeps toward flesh.
cigarette.
Go out to the night
Cut to the wind and misted moon
Twist and curl, burning red and bright
As flame moving through flesh
Go out to the night
Sputter and burn
Though owls quest and dogs harry
And black cats twitch their tails
In wait;
Though moon moves quick to meet the clouds
And mist smokes from the creek
And muted birds delude the ear
With soft songs of the sun;
And though flowers flower
And leaves green
And the looming ridge frowns darkly on the valley
And echo-fingers run searching through the grass,
I pass safely
Wide grey eyes bedded like jewels
In my priestly body of the night.
I turn
And see ‘cross the dew-silvered field
The dark trace of my passage
my eyes wet
with grey regret
My Chapel by the Sea 
Driving ‘cross the prairie
on a childish winter day
I saw the snow shovel fall
by itself
by the old school house door
If I had not
no one would have known
it was ever there
I saw it
————–
Spar Harmon, your poems make me want to try
your word pictures are something
the first half of the walnut falling makes sense to me
I’m confused by the last half about living night
Oh. It just occurred to me this is perhaps two different bits?
You have indicated you welcomed dialogue so I’m taking that at face value. I’ve never known a real poet. Who was also a mathematician (and all that other stuff) before.
Yes: two different old poems reworked in my present mind and linked by an ineffable sense of association. Your shovel poem fits perfectly; why would you think to write it? Because you did, that’s all.
In terms of craft, LIVING NIGHT is one of those perfect fusions of spontaneity and practice of craft and the original wrote itself smoothly in one effort. Without the preparation of practice, I couldn’t have written it. The end is like when you look back after breaking a virgin snowfield and regretting your spoiling its pristine perfection. Sense of sin, too. When I was younger and be up in the wee hours of night, tied in knots, raging, or whatever< I would fling my self outdoors (I have night vision) and tramp about or run or howl…then would come this sense of having committed a violation… but it did help me to be out..so absent an accuser but myself, I would let it go. Mathematicians, musicians, and poets: very similar sensibilities. I love the mathematics of shape and space. I sculpt cedar. Professionally I made things. Music and poetics are one really.
I've responded to you in Chapel, also.
Yours in God's Love,