Tangled Roots Writing

Printed in The Meadow, 2011:

 

Buckeye Hot Springs

                                                                                                                      

Just down the creek lie the ruins

of Buckeye Sawmill. 

I curl around a sleeping dog’s back,

late sun sifting the crowns

of second growth pines along the bank.                              

How prosperous a place for a warm bath

after ripping and planking, the scent of sawdust

wafting in the summer of 1861.

Yet buckskinned men and roughened horses

couldn’t drag away the few ancient cedars

or single wall of trunk we passed today

gripping the loose ravine with knuckled roots,

fragments of old conversation high in the drainages.   

Extrapolate the forest from tree, tree.

The difference in species doesn’t matter,

in sleep. The dog and I share a primal warmth

of breath and soil. I’d like to think

this was how a garden slept

before language separated,

as our island splits the gentle murmuring stream now,

the sucking and trickling of soft absorption,

the bank a sponge, and myself,

as if spelled. Nearby a young stag is just knowing

the velvet brown of antlers

no taller than his twitching ears.

He dips a narrow hoof and steps across

just below our sleeping heads lined up like lovers,

leaving no difference in sound.