Issue 16, March 1998
David Donlon - Poem

1.
I have a new concern.
I don't dress well enough for this community -- I, a poet
Out of place, out of work, untidy --
They, shooting me their drive-by looks.
They, turning their heads at my hello.


2.  
Across Kingstowne Village Parkway
Yellow, green and white in late summer abundance,
Surrounding quite earth-moving machines.
Those rusted monsters may not move again without a hitch
 	and a tractor.
But they are still building around here.

And all those flowers from across the road, the St. John's
 	Wort, the Bush Clover, the Goldenrods, and
 	more, taking advantage of last summer's clearing
 	and this summer's change of plans -- throwing their 
	scents, their pollens across the street to me.

Shall I go to them?  Surely they call to me.


3.
It is an improbable place -- a brilliant meadow leading
 	toward a man-made ridge turned golden in the
 	distance.
Here and there beneath my feet are rusted, anonymous parts
 	of machines gone this whole year -- I cannot identify
 	what they came from, but they protect the delicate
 	Violets that sprout in and among them.

And here is rabbit spoor, and the tracks of small creatures.

And here is the deep imprint of a buck deer who visited
 	this garden last night, after the rain.

From where?


4.
Atop the golden ridge I can look down upon the new Wal-Mart and Kohl's
 	on the left, a strip-mall on the right, and
 	some unknown new structure going up straight
 	ahead.

Only girders for the moment.

No doubt the connection between Van Dorn and Telegraph
 	road will go through.


5.
Here, over the roads, I can lie and listen.
The builders have knocked off for lunch.
This is for me, to know this place.

I do not overlook the crickets.

I hear the humming bees.

I perceive the wind in the flowers, and distinguish what the
 	gust brings to my nose.

I hear the soft voices of the flowers in the breeze

I see the butterfly's that flap from flower to flower.
Above I witness the clouds set against a potent blue, and note
 	circling Ravens on the edge of my sight..

It is a simple thing, lying here, looking at the sky,
 	experiencing the commerce around me.


6.
I think I want to know where the Buck has gone, where he
 	lives.

What brings him solitary to this meadow in the night?

This stride shows he was running -- and here still -- and over
 	here he leapt.

Oh now I have lost him.  That brush is too thick for me.


7.
The workmen are back, but I don't mind.  Now that I am
 	below the ridge, on the far side from the road, I
 	cannot see them and their noise is not
unpleasing once you are used to it.

I wonder about the working men.
What would they think of me here, lying among the flowers?

I guess I know the answer to that.

There is in me the thought of Walt Whitman and his trolley
drivers, of how he made friends of them.

How he admired them for their solidness --yet he was unlike
them; a poet: soft, erudite and delicate, no matter
 	what yawps he sounded in his song.

Ah Walt!  That poetry is not what it once was.  It is not
 	revered in the busy modern world, as it was not in
 	your world..

Here is no place for a poet, any more than your Washington
 	hospital was, or the battlefields of the war, or
 	anywhere else in your America.

In this land of advancement, nothing remains for the artist
 	who sees with dreamy eyes.


8.
So what is it that I want?
Why do I lay here moaning of my sorry state?

Do I wish hordes of buyers would swoon before my feet?

Do I want to rule over an empire of enthusiasts?

No, I just want to be free to write.

But I wish my desire for freedom didn't write me off.

Well, I will wish in one hand, and spit into the other.

I will saunter over to those workmen and strike up a
conversation.

I will own that I am a poet, and when they ask me to the bar
 	for a round they'll be sure to pick up the tab out of
 	admiration for my freedom.


9.
Now I feel a kinship with the flowers, the bees, the crickets,
 	the rustling things of the meadow.

That edgy forest of squares presses in; that growing thicket
 	across the road.

There is a division in me same as the division between this
 	side and that side.

Small mouths, stay with me today -- I can be still as a toad, I
 	can sing like the mocking-bird.

Something in me is in here, turning my song primal.


10.
I go as night is falling, in the twilight, when the affliction of
 	actuality is muted,
When the bang and scrape of afternoon is disappeared,
When the flowers close them sleepily, and the crickets sing
 	loud.
After each rain I look among the nodding yellow flowers to
 	find the cloven hoof-prints.
So I know who comes here often.

Such a brutal home for beauty..

I have tracked him to the edge of a stand of common Cattails,
a wide and long alley of dense stems, but I won't go
farther.

Not yet.


11.
The Eighth full moon
The brightest of the year
"Gaze at it" she said
From across the water
And so I did
It was lovely, bright and red
And the land around me
Was clear to be seen
Even the yellow flowers
And the golden ridge
So I knew
That this would be the night

I crept across the field
watching every step
I tested for the wind
The Cattails were my goal -- 
They beyond the ridge
But before the quiet road
In a low and wide ditch
Shaped something like a bowl

The crickets creaked them loud
The toads released their swell
I moved up on the ridge
Somewhat above the dell
And the rhythm of the night
became the rhythm of my blood
And I waited for some sign
That my plan might come to good.

12.
Low I crouched, counting crickets
Until all apprehension left me.
The moon climbed and yellowed
And I waited till I drowsed

Then there came the sound of a crash and gallop,
A shuffle and a snort
The moon, now low to my right
Gave just enough light to mark
The wizened buck, much smaller
Than I thought, and muzzled with gray
His scent blew up to me
And his eyes looked up the ridge
Right at me,
And they fired in the moonlight

He froze
I froze

Then he stepped two steps and froze again

We locked eyes a long time
But I never made a move
Unless it was the pounding in my neck
At last he broke toward
The rushes, flashing with awing speed
But stopped there at the entrance
Looking back at me
He dipped his head as if to eat
But he eyed me all the time
And though I made no sound
In a moment he was gone

A long while I stayed there on the ridge side
Until the sky lightened and I could hear the cars
Then I shook out my sleeping leg
And hobbled toward home.

At the road I took one long look back
Brother I know you, I said.