West

1963

Dad said no to re-up and
Retired from the Army
Retired his rank.
Retired his uniform and brass.
Twenty-one and out.

We stacked suitcases and tent
Bedding and ice chest and everything else
On top of a sky-blue Rambler station wagon,
Tarped and tied
Packed the eight of us
Dad, Mom, three boys, three girls
Dad driving, driving
Mom riding shotgun

And then
West
It was June

Driving days were long long long
But we found things to do
I wrote down the names of states
From dozens of different license plates
And when trucks passed
I’d jerk my skinny arm up and down
Hoping for a honk honk
And laughing when they did

Dad drove, right hand draped
On top of the steering wheel
His other arm resting on the left door
Sunburned.

Once we blew a tire
And Dad fitted the spare
While we boys hunted in the tall sere weeds
For the hub cap
Mom passed out car games
Palm sized puzzles
Toys
Or snacks
When we got restless
John kept track of our adventures
Diary of The Blue Streak
Which must have been someone else’s car

Mom taught the girls how to use a single dime
For all four to use one pay toilet
We boys didn’t have that issue
Being stand up kinda guys

Broad fields rolled by
Endless rolling pastures
Some still green but
Turning to amber
Endless fences of barbed wire
Cattle behind
Mountains grew in the distance
And roadkill jack rabbits
Caught my eye

Binghampton NY
The Corn Palace
Mt. Rushmore
Yellowstone
The Grand Canyon
Salt Lake City
Los Angeles
4800 miles

In a sky-blue Rambler

Milking Time at Uncle Jack's

 

I rise at 5:30, light just burnishing the horizon

Uncle Jack is calling

Time to get up!

Its milking time on a 100-acre farm

And already warming in Central California

In the big valley

Yawning, stretching

I pull on jeans, a tee, rubber boots

In the damp pasture the cows are lying in the grass

And I prod a few with a hand to the haunch

Some rise on their own

seeing the others already headed

To the corral by the milking barn

They know the way and all that’s left for me

Is to bring up a freshened heifer who balks at the gate, wide eyed

Inside, the stalls are filling

As one after another finds her place

Head into the stanchion

Uncle Jack has the milking machines ready

And one at a time he hooks them up

As I wash udders clean

And the first milk

Warm still

Flows into the milker, up to the pipes

Over to the big stainless-steel tank

I get the cow chow

And one at a time each gets a ration

At Jack’s direction, some more, some less

One string at a time, in a particular order that

Jack keeps straight in his head

Elsie, Mergatroid, Brownie, Valentine

No numbers on the girls, just names

Until we’ve completed four, maybe five strings

The heifer is last

Into a stanchion alone

Where she is locked in

Waiting for the breeder

Week after week we do this

But somehow this 14-year-old isn’t bored

Doesn’t tire of it

And the cows head back to the pasture

Ambling slowly, udders now flaccid

Tails chasing flies

A face in the clouds, Square Lake

Retirement

the back porch faces the lilacs

and the maple
 

an IPA in a frosty glass

in my hand
 

the wren sings from the drop line

a cascade of sweet notes

a measure or two
 

down the street a mower hums

the neighbors’ radio pulses with country western

somewhere distant, a chainsaw revs and is silent
 

the lawn before me

freshly mowed and fragrant
 

a butterfly lands on a yellow snapdragon

and is gone
 

above, the sky is deliriously blue behind the green maple leaves

high cirrus, pale and empty, drifts westward
 

my mouth full of bitter hops

there’s a good book on the table next to me
 

and the afternoon

stretches out ahead

like a sunburned prairie

Wide Wide Land

this place of memories

is a wide wide land

where we become children

again

and things I see

are known only to me.

where once

I ran across vast meadows

and held your hand.

 

I sing songs

that now only I can hear.

the past is gray now

cloudy, fading, falling

and I reach for a memory

as if it would bear me up

in this wide wide land.

The Maple, Again

 

four sparrows take a dust bath

where the old maple used to stand

it graced our summer with shade

and fall with a riot of colors

winters it stood barren

bereft

until the hope of spring

brought green buds

and leaves

and shade again

but now the sparrows linger

where our maple stood

only to fall to rot

toppled by the wind

leaving a place

that the sparrows remember

A survivor, shopping

he totters forward

leaning on the grocery cart

hair as white as moonlight

his face wrinkled with some tragedy

I think

his hands, knobby with arthritis

a white knuckled grip on the cart

he pauses in the rows

and rows

and rows

of abundance

selects a package of coffee beans.

as he stretches his hand forward

I see it

a ghostly string of tattooed numbers

on his forearm

I wonder

how he can carry

 the weight of memories

of a place so inhumane

then I turn away

looking down at my own arms

and find a sleeve

to wipe my eyes