Sunday (part 2 of 2)

Sunday (part 1 of 2)

Hack

Yesterday in the thaw, a sudden

satisfaction: Hacking with a shovel at ice

three inches thick, blue-white and wet,

softening into  snow-cone.

I didn’t intend to help.

I only wanted to prove

the work could be done.

Bent in a right angle, lifting the shovel, I said

the ice would relent, loosen itself into sheets,

no salt needed, a continent

exploding into islands

ready for Jake to scoop away.

I was so right. Wrists rattled as I sliced

with the edge of the shovel, pounded

each stroke with a smack

on the sweet spot, blasting

ice into smile-shaped stones,

a rhythm in my legs and hips,

lifting and smashing, working

beyond what was on my mind,

in unison with Jake, the excavator: “Good

job, Mom,” he said, “you’re good at this,”

till we broke through to shining pavement,

till the effort healed us in the dripping light.

This land

Forgive me my trespassing.

This land is your land,

farmhouse, for-sale sign,

soybean field plastered white.

This land is not my land,

but the west wind tossed me

across the street, muck boots

soiled from the stable. I slipped

toward the treeline

through brambles, sunlit

stubble, abandoned

deerstand, twisted

mulberry, moving across it
like it was mine.

John & John

For John Hibbard (second from left, back row), coach, dad and friend, and John Chase (far right, back row), my own coach and dad, in suburban heaven--tennis courts and cold beer forever.  

John & John

The line is violet, gold

in the light, the edge

of a snowdrift, ground glass

lifting in the wind,

settling into a shadowed border.

John crossed over

endlessly grinning,

spirogyra in his head,

tangled in years at a chain-link fence,

encouraging his daughter, her line drive or a drive

down the line.  Now he’s gone.

Gone to meet old friends,

another John,

my father.

Are they spinning

through their days

at that fence, drifting

to the tennis court—

their turn to play, to Saturday

doubles, in sweaty whites, moving

across green asphalt,

pale lines shifting—

a yellow ball tossed by a strong hand.

Let them rest now on a wooden bench.

Let them reach warm palms into a bucket

of ice. I hear them popping silver cans.