The Fork-in-the-road Indian Poetry Store

by Morgan, Phillip Carroll Carroll

• ISBN13: 9781844712670
• ISBN10: 1844712672
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-10-30
• Publisher: Lightning Source Inc

Summary

Earth Life got a little summer breeze heater in the tool room of the barn that my apprentice and i built last fall got a salvaged slightly-cupped age-weathered extra-wide pine board for a writing table where i struggle to round off the edges of these words which cling to the paper like sticktight burrs to my socks table rests in pale winter light channeled through the window salvaged from an wooden hangar they tore down at an airfield on the endwall of the small room the comforting durable old piano i searched for and found at the countryside junk store looks over my shoulder like a shadowing grade school mother the window opens onto an old growth prairie oak forest contrasted this bloodless january day by a carpet of fine snow grasses look flash frozen where their stiff gray-blonde stems protrude through the powder like the bristling yellow hair of an ancient i yearn for winter to cry out but nothing is profound today just cold the statuesque cows the silent birds i had to cut some extra firewood standing on plywood to keep my feet dry put on two pair of long underwear inspired by eight degrees and a north wind a hot water pipe froze at the kitchen sink i'm happy that my homespun house does not strive toward an illusion of perfection happy that i cannot ignore the weather i enjoy gathering fuel for heat from hoary wise deadfall in this crosstimbers grove or immature greenwood that complains alongside the road when the utility people cut trees in the right-of-way i like having to do a combination of things right to keep my well water from freezing it's a colorless day argued with the wife for no particular reason early winter stress spent the whole day in the house together yesterday i love this life life on planet earth i hated planet metro and planet automatic no struggle no reward for struggling there only a monotonous sense of uniformity no beginnings no endings no triumphs no natural catastrophes no entertainment only perversion and stimulation this earth life is my road it's unpredictable there's no map no hocus pocus suggestion that i am almighty because i'm the only one who has ever lived my life i must travel the trail expectantly it comes off trite to say that even dullness is perfect the excellence and symmetry of winter and dormancy are hard things to express like the beauty of sleep or the beauty of death but any lesser view of cycle and rhythm seems childish foolish even

Table of Contents

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgements

Red Earth1954

Red River

Jimmy Johnny's Zippo

Bois de Sioux

The Fortunate Grandson

Stoney

Bois de Sioux

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.