Feb '05 Featured Poet: Justin Evans
Two
poems: "HIRUNDO RUSTICO" and "THREE DEATHS"
HIRUNDO RUSTICO
In the summer our windows are open all night.
The Barn Swallows start their song
in the early morning hours
before sunrise is even a thought
waiting to be sprung,
and do not stop until we are
invested in the day.
They are the most common of swallows
but here in the desert their color is a most
refreshing distraction from the dull green
of sagebrush and white alkaline flats.
There is also something uncommon
about these particular birds.
My wife swears they know the cat
is watching, aching to get outside and chase
them down, that there is no way
the cat could climb the basketball standard.
The nest is somewhere close to our back yard
and the male is a proud father who sings
a complicated tune as if he were selling lemonade
to people as they drive past our house.
In the late evenings, when the sun
stays longer, the entire flock
comes out to circle and slice the air
of the deepening sky. My five year old
points up and says, The birds
are playing, the birds are dancing.
THREE DEATHS
After hearing the news reporting the third
death this year at Strawberry Reservoir, Utah
It takes the second telling of how a man
rolled backwards into the lake
for me to realize it is Strawberry Reservoir
being discussed, the place I learned
to fish as a child.
My childhood was filled with the smell
of the aspen trees and fresh water
of that man-made lake, of fat trout
I pulled from the depths to later eat.
I will always remember the lake
in the pre-dawn glow of morning,
covered in a mist made from the breath
of men who came to share
in ritual, and cold moist air.
Before the advent of year-round licences,
opening day at Strawberry was a sacred pilgrimage
filled with tradition and observances. I would watch
with young boy eyes, marvel at the strict
routine my grandfather followed each year.
The lake on opening day was always thick
with boats. I would imagine walking across
the top of the lake without even once
sticking my foot into the water.
My grandfather always used two anchors
to hold our place on the lake,
neither one what you might call an anchor
in the traditional sense.
Two jerry-rigged hunks of welded iron
tied to the ends of nylon rope
dropped from the bow and stern,
eased into the green-black water
always deeper than I could ever see.
For years my grandfather did all of the real work
associated with fishing the lake. Years of
working the trailer, setting the hooks, fixing
the motor, and navigation. By the time I was
sixteen years old, ready to take up
some of the labor, my eyes had wandered
and I had lost the passion and the patience.
Though my grandfather no longer
takes his boat out because of his weak legs,
I imagine his face as I listen
to the reporter narrate with practiced sincerity,
retelling this fishing story of a 69-year-old man,
not certain whether a weak heart or weak brakes
served as catalyst to yet another death this year.
* * *
So many things change with time, become lost
inside the small recess of lake tide.
One man slips backwards into the water and drowns,
unable to escape the immeasurable weight of tradition.
Another is forced to abandon the lake because he can
no longer walk the ramp. Still another lets the lake
escape him, slip away into the forgotten lore
of childhood myth.
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