In northwest Greensboro, on a quiet winter night, a tree pierced the tin roof of a woodshed. The owners will need to bring out the saw and axe blade to remove the tree from the wounded shed. Will the next roof be tin, vinyl, or asphalt? For those interested, again, we share a poem from a North Carolina poet, Will Inman, who said he "craves no wide audience, just a few responding readers."* At GDP, we hope for both!
Tree Will Mow Thickets by Will Inman
hHahh!
Hew the main stem (hHahh!) Tree will mow thickets, when it falls (hHahh!). Here in the greygreen shadows (hHahh!) sunsplayed through tall vine trees (hHahh!) gray-black-and-white swallowtail burtles swift (hHahh!) with long wingtips white spiralling (hHahh!) trail of wonder in my (hHahh!) eyes.
Axeblade sings (hHahh!) on widening white. Sweat (hHahh!) dews on forehead (hHahh!). Eyes go relentless to the (hHahh!) wound. Great tree trembles. (hHahh!) One more (hHahh!) .. just one more (hHahh!) ... TIMBER!-- Get back, Boy! Who - eeeeee! Crash!
Limbs flounce and fall back, wrong. Thickets mowed under. Zebra swallowtail effervesces out of dust and sprung dew, or in toward the dark untouched. Big naked blue wound through roof of the woods. Yellow eye relentless to the wound. More steps in the brush, then
hHahh!
We looked up burtle, which spell check wanted to change to turtle or brutal, and in a conventional dictionary it is defined as "a sweeting apple" and in the urban dictionary it is "a mythical creature that burrows underground." It is also a village in Southwest England. What do you think Inman (1923- 2009) meant?
Finally, watch out for trees as they surrender to the weight of snow and ice.
* (p. 110, poets of North Carolina, Richard Walser).
That'll be a lot of work come spring.
Posted by: William Kendall | Tuesday, February 16, 2016 at 05:15 PM