It appeared beneath our yew,
A large puffball that grew
Unseen. Then there were two.
Soft, bleached skulls without holes,
Less like the dead than souls.
I picked them up — their spongy skin
As alarmingly soft as sin.
I was frightened of what grew within.
A man shot a magpie on the wing.
It fell with a broken wing.
The nock snapped the bow’s string.
The man gave the bird to a priest,
Who nursed it to be released,
Then decided to keep it in a cage.
To release its gale force outrage,
The priest split the magpie’s tongue,
Expecting to hear a terrible song.
Instead he heard nothing but words,
The speech of Man, not birds:
His own prayers and curses,
And profaned Biblical verses.
The altar boys taught the magpie
To ask of everyone, “Why
Weren’t you shot from the sky?”
The passing of years
As we enter the gray —
The shedding of tears
(Allowed only a day),
The mending of love —
Is below and above
The light and the dark,
A singing meadowlark
Whose eye can’t be seen
Through eyelid screens,
As the daylight retreats
And tomorrow repeats.
The derecho downed
Thousands of trees,
Two in my back yard.
Both fell on our house,
Toppling chimney,
Ripping down gutters,
Driving heavy branches
Through shingled roof.
One spearlike stem
Missed me as I slept,
By the width of my bed.
Water on me woke me,
Not the cracking sound.
It was close, but not soon
Enough to take me asleep.
The nuthatches and chickadees
Are here, but are never there.
No twig, no arm of a lawn chair,
(Nothing their little claws seize)
Remains a perch for long
In each bird’s pursuit of song.
In movement they find flying.
They cannot be still for trying.
They pause only for sustenance —
The suspension of cadence
Taking air from the vibrating beak.
That is a bird’s life — to seek.
Most winters the river froze
A foot or more thick, visible,
Before the snows came,
By crack lines that struck
Down like lightning bolts.
I could step out fearlessly,
Though the loud zip sound
Of a fissure shot from yards
Away and ran between my legs.
As I skated the sounds of stressed
Ice followed me, just as I
Chased the schools of fish
That ran ahead of me. I was
Never quite sure what they were —
Panfish, cats, bass, carp or pike,
Never more than four or five,
Sometimes only one, like a finger.
They knew I chased them
From above their hardened sky.
A neighbor taught me “trout-lines,”
Said they were named after trout
Having been gone for centuries,
If they ever were here to be run off
By poisons more filthy than death.
(Even he, in his sixties, didn’t know
They were actually called “trot-lines.”)
Still some species of hardier stuff,
All ugly (why does ugliness survive?) —
Carp, suckers, bullhead and catfish —
Seem to thrive in a watercourse
The sun cannot pierce or illuminate.
The trot-line is for the lazy “angler,”
A stout length of cord with a big hook
Baited with a small fish and weighted
With a heavy lead sinker and thrown
Out as far as possible and left.
I would check mine every few hours.
Often when I was rod fishing I’d be
More intent on the trot-line because
The hope was to catch something big.
Day after day the line would droop,
Swaying in the Kishwaukee’s current.
Then the line went taut and walked
Upstream. Dad was mowing the lawn
Behind me. I shouted but he didn’t hear.
I pulled and it didn’t seem to resist.
Its head became visible by the pier,
A visitor from prehistory, carapace
Ridged with green diamond shapes.
I tied off the line, went for my Dad,
Who helped me haul the monster up
Onto the bank. “Snapping turtle,”
He said. “They can be dangerous,
But they make great turtle soup.”
He tied it to a tree and ran away,
Leaving it to wander, but thwarted,
When it came close to the river.
Dad returned with a hatchet and stick,
Offered the stick to the turtle’s snout,
Which grabbed, crunching on it.
“You’ll see. He won’t let go,
No matter how hard I pull.”
He meant to chop off its head,
But the beast did let go and bit
My father’s pinky. Blood everywhere.
Dad did take its head, swearing,
Breathing hard, then he threw
The turtle, head still biting the stick,
Hatchet, trot-line, all into the water.
As he walked away, he shouted,
“No more trot-lines. They’re too
Damn dangerous for a little kid.”
I told my neighbor, who said,
“I’d call him a damn fool, wasting
Good turtle soup, but I don’t say
Things like that to a neighbor’s son.”
