L.R. Harvey Poetry

OVERSATURATED Even in the dank crawlspace, then,  a pulse: salamanders thick as a thumb and spotted a shade that by all our color wheels just shouldn’t exist. If even here , in the crawlspace,  then we’re left to bank on little  but this: grace is a downpour  too much to collect, meaning our best bet is  to soak up what we can, redirect what’s left, then scribble our way  out to tell about the bright flash of tail suggesting even something  wilder wriggling beneath.

EVE DROPPINGS What we have here is a poor  rendition of murmurings  scrapped from the strip of light beneath the door.  Was "leaving" the word? A going  away? Are we going to stay ? What other world  are we whispering toward? 

ABSENCE You’re not crazy; there’s an emptiness  here so thick you can feel it  when it connects with a stout right hook below the jaw. Yes,  that’s real blood in your mouth!  But after you spit it out,  you’re also not insane if you make  yourself stumble back into the ring: there’s always waters  for hovering over.

AT BEST A JAR OF LIGHTNING BUGS Most flew well beyond the hope we fleshed as fingers flashing out, but with a shout we caught a few, held up the Mason jar to watch them  limp around the bottom edge  as if they too were circling the thing we were really hoping to catch: something like sum total  of evening field, still lake, the ache they combine to ignite for a light even longer than summer.  At my elbow she asked why they were bent  like that and I told her about  the way we have of winging the very flicker we’re hungry to preserve.  We watched them burn a minute, the steam of our breath veiling the glass, then tapped them free on the grass and didn’t clutch for another word. 

SUGGESTIVE SHELTERS So you’ve set out to construct a house on top of the mountain you imagine will offer the perfect view  of the horizon you fell in love with  when you were driving through  here some years back. It wakened  something that you can’t seem to shake,  and at nights you’d lie awake  and imagine a place where you could  hold it, call it your own, be something  more than just another visitor given just a passing glimpse.  You agonize over plans, materials,  design, and then finally it’s time, and you step out on the front porch only to find that from this vantage point it’s barely the same sky  you saw once, and even back on the road there’s now a new roof-line eclipsing  the view. It’s clear: there’s a gap  between what you envisioned and what you have here, and since  you’re now more certain than ever that what you saw back then was true, and your failure to encapsulate it a kind of backwards testament t...

SHARED SPACE The neighbor at our back mows  most of our yard because that’s how  he always did it when his in-laws lived here  and then his nephew, totaling  forty-seven years, which is about how old  his daughter is who lives at the front  of the field. And while I’d like to ask  her to slow down when she drives  up our driveway to visit her parents,   I want to be sensitive to the fact  that the field lines from our septic tank  cross the property line and she hasn’t asked us to dig them out,  and I can’t argue that the old man's chronic mowing has its real perks.  Sometimes I imagine how nice  it would be to do whatever I want wherever on my property I want to without needing to think  about how it will affect anyone but me and mine. Other times,  I’m grateful that this common field won't participate in the deception that anyone has this luxury.

OLD OAK There is no other coast calling, no there to make clear what here   is missing and offer it. What he has he has  or waits to be given: light,  water, and a good view  to watch the scurry  carry on below  as we scrape to pull up  our roots and re-pot them in whatever soil we hope will make us  grow like he did.