River geography at first hand
I.
Possibly the mulberry tree
or the sour juice of unripe grapes.
(They bend in air.)
I make the salt.
And from the early years
the first of these trees.
And the birds scattered.
I keep watch above the flowers,
as elsewhere,
river geography at first hand.
There are other stories:
White garbed women
and a road begun.
II.
I'll crawl the damp earth
beneath the kitchen.
Watch from the room with hardwood
floors,
from outside, and assume
she's a witch.
Watch for lights after dark
and walk barefoot, outside.
(Eat salt from your hand.)
And, carry those old bug-eaten
books out of the barn.
III.
Is the Schumach place still standing
by the one oak?
In March. She.
Early jonquils,
where we found his old gear shift knob
with a naked woman on it.
The barber's chair is in there.
(The tree from which
the needles are obtained is an
evergreen.)
These are the fertility songs of the people:
Six (black) birds carried on an upriver
voyage.
IV.
The continual offering of bread:
Here,
the Blackberry Spell and Easter.
(At sunset they are led into caves
or enclosures of rough stone.)
You could get a shave
with a straight edge razor.
V.
(Springs were supplemented
with well.)
Her garden hat is still on the back porch,
but not within reach.
Her cellar full of fruit jars.
(A kind of sumac.)
It has been translated as elm.
But the elm does not occur
in Yakima.
He used to roll his own
Prince Albert,
then, after the tree fell,
he quit.
Dust settles evenly here.
Jacobs home page
An error in geography
The timber they kept back
Things not explicitly remembered
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