1.
After the flood of holiday cheer
and four black and frosty mornings
into the New Year, I have lost track
of the names of days
celebrating work:
friends gathered,
calves branded,
meat fired
and bottles emptied—
the hugs and handshakes
of neighbors, persistent
habits etched deeper
in the hard ground
worn around our eyes—
deeper yet into souls,
our pupils as pinholes
to grand landscapes
either side, missed
by the migratory headed
somewhere up the road.
2.
We live within a dot on the map,
a speck of dust on a spinning globe
in space and time without end,
holding firm to our moment,
looking back and ahead at once:
no finish line in sight.
3.
We pace our plodding, take all week
to get the work done, to savor details
of small accomplishment in a hazy
scheme of keeping track of seasons
shaped by rain, or lack of it—
our spiritual sustenance comes
with the crescendo of storms
we pray for, almost everyday, keeping
busy while we wait for an answer.
4.
In the winter, we invest in the future
measured by firewood stacked outside
the door, like last year’s crop of acorns
stored by natives, wild and domestic,
we are prepared in this place
to loose track of days scattered
like native cattle into strays
chasing the good grass back home.
