corydon & alexis

corydon & alexis

corydon & alexis

shepherdboy?    not the most salient image for contemporary readers
nor most available.     unless you’re thinking BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN:
a reference already escaping.      I did love a montana man, though no good shepherd

rather: a caveman, came spelunking into that grotto I’d retreated to

what light he bore illumined such small space—physically, temporally

and did he have a grove of beech trees?     no, no grove
but together we found an old-growth stand of redwood

we gouged each other’s chests instead of wood:   pledges that faded
he was not cruel nor I unwitting.   but what endures beyond any thicket?


example: he took me to the ocean to say farewell.   I mean me:  farewell to ocean
the ocean, for that matter, to me.   us both fatigued, showing signs of wreckage

and that man I had loved stood back from the edge of things

he did not hold me

I expected not to be held

we all understood one another:   shepherd understudy, ocean, me


and did he go back to his fields and caves?    yes, but they were gone
strip-mining, lumber, defoliant, sterile streams:  you knew that was coming

weren’t we taught some starched sermon:  the pasture awaits us elsewhere


back up a moment: the forest you mentioned—remember, instead of a grove?

untouched for the most part.   some human damage, but not ours

we left no mark, not there in the midst of those great trees:
not in the concentric rings that might have held us far past living

instead, I put that man, like so many others, on paper—
a tree already gone from sight where once it had drawn the eyes
upward: the crest of a mountain.   crumpled thoughts, crumpled love


shepherdboy, do you see the wild fennel bulbs I gathered for you
olallieberries, new-mown grass, the tender fruits of the coastal fig?

I put them on paper, too, so fragile.    for nothing is ever going to last