L.R. Harvey Poetry

MAKE, BELIEVE And then, maybe, after decades of dull devotion to the work, we may discover  that it was all a slow return  to three, our love of this world  become once again so complete   that we ask nothing more of our time in it  but the chance to play it back in pretend: a trip to the doctor, a load of laundry, the soft-scented stuff of days mounding up  till the simple joy of being here makes our basket runneth over, much  the way this plate does at this after- noon's feast of little, plastic vegetables.

AROUND HERE In some places there’s a right way  of doing things, and the more I hang around this world the more I recko n this is one of them, the secret i ngredient folded into a recipe book kept safe  in the nook behind the cupboard, which you're only privy to— along with all the other  rules of engagement written in the cook’s near- illegible slant— after being in the family for far longer than you or me can  hope to stick around . Good news is they're passing out the cake now, and the flavor in these layers isn't waiting to be f igured out.

IN, NOT OF Increasingly less stirring, this call  to contribute our sticks to the mix to help beat back the wolves,  or even, from the other side  of the pulpit, to flip them over  as staffs and walk the way of the pack until we can speak wolf,  at which point we can begin— both in and outside the pen— to reform them into sheep.  By all means, if you can take this route and stem the slow formation  of a snout, (your baa obtaining, even now,  the hint of a howl ,) keep the course.  I’d just ask you be a tad less  coarse in your remonstrance  of those who increasingly find  such discourse to be a bit, well,  wooly , deciding instead to hoof it  the way of the little pig and build a good brick house to lock the wolves out when they come knocking, even, yes, if  they might yet be redeemed.  And who knows: the scent of a really good stew has even been known  to turn a wolf or two, wondering  why they ever settled for an economy  as bankrupt as teeth when such a feast  might be sipped for f

BIRTHDAY PICKLING What brings us here is sheer abundance, the surplus between what we seeded  and what we plucked— rookie's luck— tumbling over  the edge of the counter like congregants at a tent revival overcome by the Spirit (or maybe the heat.) Too much to eat, and how quick it all  shrivels, even molds, so this morning Ball jars clink in toast to preserving what we can,  at least long enough  that some of it might tang our children's tongues and set them to witness. And if the days are long and thin and not in the business of filling, there’s still this undeniable crunch to relish in, not to mention that eternal after- taste sharpening the back of more than throats as we draw near the bottom of the jar.

  TAKING STOCK — a birthday poem Well, let’s see. Thirty years of this  and nothing to show for it but  one life, which has turned out to be far more mundane than the lives of those other thirty-year-olds I fought alongside as a kid on various missions out back,  but I have two daughters and a wife who appreciate my mundanity,  and then there’s still this wild hope  to reckon with, the dormant one ever growing  inside of me alongside the cancer cells likely just beginning to stretch molecular legs,  and if trajectory means anything will continue growing until they discover it  too late to remove and declare me a case with no remission.

TIME AND AGAIN, CARPENTER ANTS A scout, I presumed, sure to bring back news  of good eatin’ just beneath the siding,  call his friends to begin the slow work  of hollowing the firm until it sags  and even crashes on what sleeps sheltered inside. I plucked him off the pavers  winding towards the house  and felt the soft house of his body pop   between my fingers then looked for more, as if with enough vigilance  I could stave off this inevitable nibbling  around the bones, as if I might not one day wake up tangled in mangled trusses like a caved-in rib cage,  crawling out to report back  nothing but another strange dream before vanishing into the Great Thorax which has never eaten its fill.

THE ACCUSED Perhaps we could do worse than be troubled by the trivial.  But when the accusations are Big and Vague enough to seem  Serious—Failure to Sacrifice for Greater  Good, Neglect of Civil Responsibility,  etc., etc.—plead innocent or guilty  (it won’t matter much,) then trouble yourself only with just how vast is the invisible multitude walking with you  as you’re led out the dark door at the back, shouldering your sentence of oh  so very guilty , the judge laughing  as he bangs his gavel and pronounces Joy Joy Joy without parole.

MARKET After emptying our pockets of all  the counterfeit coin we’ve  accumulated, ( mostly because it’s easier  to come by these days, not to mention far less taxing  to carry,) why are we surprised  when the children go to bed hungry after pretending to taste  exactly what we paid for and pretended to bring to the table? 

IMPOSTER SYNDROME Despite these mystic aspirations,  I must admit I really like to know  things: what’s for dinner before it’s set  on my plate, what the poem means,  and then exactly how these beans  and words will continue making well- a fter the plate is wiped clean into the garbage  can. I'm aware it all runs deeper  than we think, but can’t quite come to care for the queasy feeling when someone kicks over  the ant-hill and there’s infinitely more  than we ever dared imagine.  Is there a remedy for this condition  other than the grit to diver under  again and again until we can  hold our breath a little bit longer,  see the shadows of what swims a little bit deeper, then surface and even walk straight with the bends? 

  COMMUTE, COMMUNE You’re angry, I gather,  because I’m in your way  and am the face of the incessant delay  keeping you from where  most likely you don’t want  to be. So it’s not in judgment  but empathy, even gratitude  for this passing glimpse of myself  were it not for love’s tempering  hand on my shoulder, that I wish  you “God-speed,” pulling over as  you whip around, which means— if you’ve ever walked with him  in the garden in the cool of  the day—“slow the hell down.”

CLAWING AT AIR For months now I have been  a flipper of cicadas. No lucrative business but it’s honest work and plenty of it,  easier than writing and more gratifying than prayer as you can actually see them  slingshot from your finger and go  haphazardly hurtling towards the light.  Round here they’re everywhere,  which I read somewhere is because just about everything loves to claim cicadas from the air before they reach higher branches. So often survival is a numbers game.  All the same, I still believe you're the root we’re feeding on,  Lord, but it's a thin, croaking hope that you can handle the sheer onslaught in this brief interval between dawn and husk.

IF THE WHOLE BIT ABOUT CYCLICAL HISTORY CHECKS OUT Then in some far future page 78 of the sophomore textbook  may show scientists dancing around  a great steel microscope as the teacher says something like “no really,  they thought it would save them  and crafted elaborate myths about how  it all worked.” Someone in the back is doodling a picture of a penis  holding a beaker with “I’m a moron” on the label,  thinking how dumb you’d have to be  to really believe the trees weren’t listening and lightning bugs were ever  anything else than a field’s dreams.  The teacher repeats the mantra about how we mustn’t be too quick  to judge them with the gift of retrospect  as someone else chews a pencil  and wonders to himself if maybe  he’s crazy because it kind of seems  like the old views may actually  hold water—which would account for this chronic thirst—but then of course the test is coming up and who  would listen anyway because of how much we’d all have to change if they do.

INTO THE GROUND Were I to be accused of bankrupting what is deemed the serviceable part of me  by spending an inordinate amount  of time doing nothing lucrative  with words and birds   on the front porch, investing  in far too many seeds  than the weeding department  could ever hope to handle for a garden I've never  actually seen but swear  must be there right beneath the sod,   and doing it all with the same  staff—however under-qualified  we continue proving to be— with whom I started this venture, I’m banking on the judge  laughing as he brings the gavel down  with a pronouncement of oh  so very guilty , the ushers  leading me out the back door  as I shoulder the unending sentence of joy joy joy  without parole