Vermont Cabin Fever

Vermont Cabin Fever

There are places untapped in my deciduous soul
Where something dark and sweet bubbles
And feeds the buds rising to April light
And my winter toes reach their knobby lengths
Into the frozen ground, the thawing earth,
The sandy breakdown of old mountains.

My rough veined hand holds a 3-B pencil
To the tablet and at the peripheral of my
Vision the house breathes and settles
Around me, flapping its brittle plastic
And someone is cutting the white pines
Standing next to my land, letting in light
And the chainsaw growls and blue smoke spirals
Between the fallen limbs.

Mourning doves and the cawing of crows
That roost in the pines are cries
And I think maybe their homes are gone.
There was a field of Canada Geese resting
This noon by the creek and I wanted
To be of their tribe, my long neck reaching,
Gleaning the corn stalks and murmuring fowl
Language, soft as water under my breath.

And what do you readers know of me from these words
But to stand in my bare feet on the frozen ground
Near a scattered woodpile and plant the garden
In your mind again and again for as soon as the ground
Thaws, the spring will come, wanton and quickening
To an eastern forest paradise and the big cars
Will glide up from New York and Boston to see
This wonder of green, the mountains lounging
Like untouched women, the silver pulse of rivers
Taking trout lines, winking in the sun.

But no one really lives here, we are invisible like the
Deer, the wild strawberries beyond the road’s ditch,
Though not nearly so aesthetic, we are artists and
Teachers and shopkeepers and cooks, our children
Are bored and ride bicycles and camp alone in the
Mountains to find themselves which were never lost.