L.R. Harvey Poetry

  TUESDAY MORNING, THIRTIETH WEEK OF ORDINARY TIME  — All Hallow’s Eve Dead deer, already dead,  now smeared a few yards ahead  by the aftermarket bumper of a lifted truck in North Georgia dark. Intermittently visible  in hazard lights, the old man shuffles to the window, lights, says he’s shook  a bit but other than that ok.  On his way to the Snak Shak  to get a sausage biscuit when smack ,  left bumper, and that was that. A semi  punctuates his words and divides the deer in half. We turn to look.  At this point I’m late for work  and not sure anymore what the work is, or if I’m doing it, but there's a long trail of blood and a road ahead.  

  i The mathematicians met God  and called him an imaginary  number. The poets imagined theirs a different case and duly signified his presence with a capital, as if to make clear he isn’t here but Here. i too have met him in my own, small way, which—needless to say—is not all that different, if equally tricky to convey.

CASTLES The inevitable return of the tide proves insufficient to deter the faithful from stooping to the work. In fact,  the thin sliver of dune the tide affords before it's inevitable return serves as battlecry for those prone to recline the day away on  their towels to up-and-populate  the plane, regardless of how flimsy such populace may prove. Given that  erasure is sure and that soon enough  ours walls and moats will once again see eye to eye, we might as well  construct them deep and high  before the leveling, bedazzling them  with shells and other beach bracken we stumble upon. And who’s to say  for certain who might stumble upon  our creations come evening  time: some fiddler-crab king,  perhaps, or maybe a footsore dreamer who never would have lingered otherwise, pausing to watch our work return  to the deep from which it came, feeling a tug at more than their ankles to do the same.

UP THE DOWN ESCALATOR                 —  for Tim As far as measurable here ’s  and there ’s, you’ll find the endeavor a frustrating one. If any ground  is gained it will be found  to be interior terrain,  a destination stumbled upon when you have exhausted your- self and your vain aspirations of forward progress. You’ll notice the children are the ones yet fool enough to try and go on trying  despite the sharp remonstrance of parents, logic, security guards bidding them stop and be carried down with the rest to a sensible level. You’ll notice the knuckleheads are  the ones who sometimes even get there,  arriving at a place far higher than just the second floor, out of breath, yes, but squealing with laughter.

NEW BOOK Even after the long-coming completion of the built-ins, the subsequent cramming with appropriate matter, the question  of what now to do with what’s been  gathered proves to be another matter  about which further study offers more veiling than availing. Observe here a remarkable species of Slow Learner in his natural habitat— watch as he tears ravenously into the package arrived at last  in the post, the one holding the book  he hopes will hold the answer he’s hoped for in just so many other packages.  With such a cacophony of voices crowding out the thin air-space of his shelves,  no wonder then he doesn’t hear the still, small  appeal of his two-year-old daughter  delivering what might prove to be—after  all—the sought-after solution built into some long- neglected nook of even those most enamored by the word: Book down. Play blocks.

LIFE BENEATH THE MOUNTAIN In the shallow hollow where Old Highway 2  hits Happy Valley Road, the radio  signal stutters, fritzing to  another frequency until you pass through, turn, or drop it in reverse.  The reverse may also prove true:  if you find the song that drives you  dropping out, some other melody  pressing to find its way  in, you may be where Old Highway 2  hits Happy Valley Road,  or if not there then at some other cross- roads where you must arrive at a decision, and based on  how traffic flows, relatively soon.

POEMS AND OTHER HEIROGLYPHS Echoes of a tomb-raider calling in an ancient  tongue of which I catch but snippets,  my one orientation  into the dizzy beyond,  each one serves as door, wall, and hall, drawing me deeper into the labyrinth and guiding me  through it, or say  helping me make a kind  of sense and shielding me from growing too sensical  to know the way until I’m hopelessly lost and home at last.

TRY, INSTEAD, BEING HELD Once again this evening  the sun sneezed without covering its mouth, smattering   the field with droplets.  We watch from the front porch as the children  scatter as if summoned by an inaudible bell. Among other blessings,  lightning bugs are  incredibly fragile, which is our first—and often our last— encounter with the elusive, and then the truth of what happens if you grip the light too tight.

COMING TO In the swirling, whirling realm            of blue-gray possibility,                      it was—as it so often seems to be—the light            fixture which found me,                      quietly taking my hand  and leading me through            the labyrinth of dream-land                     back here, that is to say home , where— if I’m thinking straight—           turns out I never                      actually left. Either way, beneath the steady gaze           of its eye and held in the slow                     dizziness of its arms is as good a place as any           to drift back asleep,                     its breath blessing my cheek.

THE DREAM The best part is waking up  to discover you aren’t trapped  anymore in a world that doesn’t  make sense, the thin, shifty one dense with inconsistencies where you know you must keep running but can’t say  why, and hard as you try  your legs rebel against you  to sludge at their own, methodical pace, and there’s something of immense  importance that absolutely must be said but even your kin and closest friends tilt their heads when you try to say it and your thick tongue tumbles out some ancient babble you’ve both long-since forgotten how to interpret, and suddenly you feel exposed,  unclothed, and they’re all laughing at you  but the thing is still coming and the thing must absolutely still be said  so you muster all of yourself  for one last, unreasonable push, muscles tensing as you jolt in bed,                 sweating and out of breath  as the sun breaks the horizon                 and light clarifies the questions.  This, at least, is how I imagine                it will

THE LORD'S GAME At the royal hunt the king carries a golden  bow, and we stoop low as we shimmy through  the well-worn furrows back to our burrows and thickets. Then  the hound, the arrow, and  (wouldn’t you know it)  the wound, and soon we find ourselves something less than selves,  salted and crowned in thyme as we become a part of him,  served with wine at his table.

FALSE STARTS FOR THE HOLY MOUNTAIN But this morning a step  further than yesterday, zipped sandwich in a plastic bag and wearing my good hat all the way to the end  of the driveway, where again  I glanced back at the house like Lot’s wife, taking in my little lot in life and thinking twice about what’s meant by the promised land, how depending on how the light glances the panes  the sane are either tethered or chained.

OAK HAVEN                                — 3.14 acres on the Chickamauga battlefield What grows this time of year  is all we didn’t plant: scores  of wild blackberry, tart apples from a tree  the neighbor’s grandfather imagined one day harvesting, morning mushrooms opening to light like a prayer.  All we didn’t do to deserve this fills more baskets than we carry. Still,   in Spring we bike the battlefield,  rubber tread rolling over the dead leaves of Winter. The trees bear  the burden to re-member  what is too heavy for us to hold.  This is the toil tasked the trees. Ours too is heavy  work: to tread lightly as the doe  dew-stepping the meadow  of Mcfarland’s Gap. To tread lightly  all the way home. And when we get there to leave the questions unanswered as we soil our thumbs with a seeding  prayer for the seasonal resurrection  of the long rows of muscadine  the farmer never returned to pick.

SPRINKLER Then deep beneath the soil propulsion, low gurgle  as of someone clearing their throat to speak, squeak, and out sprouts numberless glimmering angles  to herald the one, dark water.  The children are wise  enough to slip off their sandals as they babble the bright excitement, outstretched fingers grabbing at everything and  holding nothing as they’re held  within the fountain by the invisible hands  of a love which asks nothing in return, other than that— once soaked—they let themselves be changed before  coming in to the meal prepared.