Three Poems
by Keagan Hawthorne
Benediction for Disaster
The Lord of the harvest bless thee
turn the sun to shine upon thee, and keep thee
from too much moisture in the springtime
not enough moisture in the summer
too much moisture in the fall.
From a careless cigarette in the hay barn,
from a rat - for no rat comes alone – in the grain bins.
From clubroot in canola, rust on the wheat,
ergot blackening the rye.
From colic in a baby and bloat in the cows.
From trips and falls and feet that catch in augers,
from hands that catch in belts.
From increasing inputs and decreasing yields,
from the bottom falling out of the market again
or BSE being discovered in the herd.
From tradewars and politicians,
from handsome cowboys at the country dance.
From children who turn and walk away,
bad hootch and worse luck at cards,
the uncle that never paid your father back.
From a heart that breaks as a heart is want to do.
From fear, from fear.
Arrival
Early September’s bad weather
in from the mountains.
Rain in the morning, cold breath
of the wind, and just as the wan light fails
in the evening: snow.
Confused robins on the grass,
a marauding bat out dodging the fat flakes.
Cats go slinking into barns, the mice
continue their small assaults on contingency.
In town the streets are lit
though everyone has gone inside.
Snow fingers the empty lanes
where streetlamps wear their empty stories
skirted by the silent snow.
One hopes that later there will be
a peeling back of clouds,
the moon to turn its cold face
on the world, hardening the shadows
in the graveyard, that grove of graves
wherein the dead are planted
for their final flowering.
The Second Voyage
I was already an old king when I set off,
Taking the inland road with a band of men
Who could row against all tides but were unaccustomed
To the tromp. Blisters blossomed on our heels,
The axles of the oxcarts stuck, or broke. The men fought
The beasts and one another, even though the way was broad
And folks were welcoming and kind. I kept a brave face,
Shouldered my oar, certain that my story would precede me.
And for many months it did: in the taverns where we supped
They sang of how I ploughed with prows of many ships
The furrows of the sea, no thought of harvest
Save for the praise of many men.
And how I reaped such bounty.
The legend has it wrong: it was not fate that set me on this way
Just some blind old drunk in the corner of a port-side watering hole
In Ismaros or Scheria, I've long forgotten which,
Who raved of a land where men knew nothing of the sea.
We laughed at him, my men and I, who knew everything of the sea -
Mocked the thought of eating meat unsalted, joked
Of oars and winnow fans. And yet. And yet.
The thought would get to haunting me, years on,
Safely home and hearth-side:
A land where men knew nothing of the sea - a land
Where men knew nothing about me. From atop the cliffs
I watched the sea turn into an ocean of rolling grain;
I could not eat a fish for fear it was some fur-flesh
Dressed up by an awful curse. At night
The sigh of breakers soughed like wind in grass -
And so I left to put these dreams to rest.
By the time I crossed the final pass I was alone,
The men all married tavern girls
Or turned back home to Ithaca, and all alone
I took the way descending through a valley
To a plane that opened all the way horizonwards.
With a shock I thought I must have circled home:
An ocean of grass before me, and the waves of it
Broke upon the rocky shore of the road.
I came to a crossroads and sat down on a stone,
Sluffed my oar into the ditch. The wood was gone
All paper-grey from too much of sun and not enough of sea,
Too many nights spent propping up the canvas of the tent,
Too many days spent propping up the canvas of a tale.
And here I sit, a king much older still.
These days the growth of many summers
Has turned to winter in my beard and I've decided
Just to wait it out - for now I can't quite recall:
Was it sword or sward, swell or swale?
I cannot think just how this story ends:
Was it far or from the sea?