From: ariel_s@west.darkside.com (Ariel S)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: mansfield
Date: 11 Oct 92 22:56:43 GMT
Organization: The Dark Side of the Moon +1 408 245 SPAM


  
Up From The Wheat  
Leaving  
Mansfield, Washington  
-----------------------------  
  
Gone, is silent, ordered wheat field,   
the brusquely scythed stubble.  
Gone, the glinting, tow'ring silos  
pointing unto heaven.  
Gone... neat, white-washed houses  
of home-town, square-town grid --  
those aging, huddling boxes,   
that clustered in the the gullies,   
the ridge tops, the lull   
of the fields.  
  
Straw universe.  
Steel sky.  
All clean   
in their contrast.  
  
Square houses, neat rows,  
of pink-blushed, apple-cheeked grandmas  
and stalwart sons that wrestle sky -- 
all the land, the past 
borne up on their shoulders. 
And their daughters', their sons, 
as they plod into the future -- young futures burgeoning  
to fill the banks. 
    
Crisp, clean bills  
like square little houses -- 
the future of that land. 
 
Golden wheat. 
Steel sky.  Square future. 
No wildness 
in between. 
 
  
 
8/92 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
My Own Private Idaho 
Harrison, Idaho 
-------------------- 
 
 
Rising up out of lake,  
out of berry patch,   
rising up planking -- rickety, orange-stained,  
bridging worlds --  
into private, hand-crafted,  
dark, exotic;  
twisting, turning -- 
countryside, turned in  
upon itself --   
my own private Idaho. 
  
Plants, creeping, drifting, 
among gathered, hanging birdsnests 
dripping from ceilings, from shelving,  
from strings, stands -- everything 
twisting, reaching, inward 
upon itself. 
  
Spindly-limbed boy in green shorts -- 
pasture-green like raw spring, 
gambols through rooms, shrieking and spinning,  
halo red hair like fire, 
like orange pumpkin fire, igniting mind 
to frenetic flights 
of limbs, of talk, 
of fancy. 
 
And I falling 
like cat through air 
feet feeling for ground --  
finding but air 
rushing upwards, 
to tickle stomach, eyes --  
this new world rushing by 
in strangeness, 
in vertigo. 
  
As man in coveralls,  
billowing pinstripe, indigo denim, 
leads on, clumping, galumping, 
his nose like squashed squash blossom, 
shoe button eyes, 
as voice speaks outward -- shyly through women, 
-- to menfolk, and gruffly, 
"This a way, down here." 
 
And the world winding, rushing 
in on itself,  
and around, around and falling 
the ground tickling my feet, 
testily, just out of reach. 
Down, down... 
 
------ 
 
Indigo stripes billowing and pouting, 
country faces, like apple dolls -- 
with wrinkle, with character, with age worn 
irrelative to city, to world. 
A foreground, to mountain -- mountains 
that rise rugged out of lake span, 
that blue pan that stretches from side to side,  
tying the world from east to west 
like ribbon, like sash,  
of pebble shine blue 
uniting world, this world  
this ends of the earth. 
 
And mountains, still mountains, 
rising out of lake -- thrust into sky,  
black green forest of stiff-needled icing, 
lush enough, sweet enough 
to eat -- cut a slice,  
fresh from the lake, 
and dish it up for supper, dessert. 
A meal to follow taco salad  
and mild German scones. 
 
Humming birds flutter on lake-born breeze 
over pine boards, and rails,  
rough-edged and rickety with love, 
past sun-washed flag that swivels in the evening air. 
And all settles to ground,  
stillness, quiet.. 
my feet, resting,  
comfortable 
on smooth-worn,  
pine. 
 
Touch-down 
with vertigo 
ringing 
in my ears. 
 
8/92 
 
 
 
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