H(WY)<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It might be anywhere, this dusty<\/p>\n

road winding from Ucross to Ulm.<\/p>\n

You hike its scrub and shale, later<\/p>\n

]carving initials in the soft stone,<\/p>\n

lying back to dream under sizable sky –<\/p>\n

I’ll be good, I’ll live forever<\/em>,<\/p>\n

bone-buoyant earth stretching off<\/p>\n

to Dakota and Montana, a drained<\/p>\n

Eocene ocean full of soil-swimmers<\/p>\n

shoaled up in mid-life, mid-stroke.<\/p>\n

It might be anywhere – a road to Delphi,<\/p>\n

or Deadwood, the Via Appia<\/em> as it nears<\/p>\n

the Adriatic at Brundisium, wherever<\/p>\n

gravity is the cause of flat water.<\/p>\n

But it is the road to Ulm.\u00a0 Continuing<\/p>\n

then through Clearmont and Recluse, and<\/p>\n

likewise, all along in there, Wyoming.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

John Hews <\/strong>(1685-1793)<\/p>\n

“He long wished for death, and would sometimes cry like a child…that God had\u00a0forgotten him.”\u00a0 – Babson, History of the Town of Gloucester.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sun in the trunk!\u00a0 The days escape!<\/p>\n

Odd science, Franklin wouldn’t have it.<\/p>\n

The tulips nod like gossips: “Goodies,<\/p>\n

listen to Methuselah mutter.” Sawdust falls like sparks of butter.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One hundred and eight years!\u00a0 Old enough<\/p>\n

to reminisce about my own old age.<\/p>\n

A Struldbrug discovered by Gulliver,<\/p>\n

or a tree,<\/p>\n

without the luck to be struck by lightning.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Silence, lackwit!\u00a0 Rest thy relics<\/p>\n

against the fence, count clouds:<\/p>\n

Cadiz, Vigo, Virginia…<\/p>\n

Cadiz forgets itself, becomes a schooner,<\/p>\n

bottom-dark, a ballast of rain.\u00a0 The boy<\/p>\n

in the bow watches flying fish leap<\/p>\n

from the Sargasso Sea, arc in air:<\/p>\n

kings, colonies, witches, wives…<\/p>\n

Christ died<\/p>\n

on the Cross.\u00a0 That’s the New Testament.<\/p>\n

I wearied of the need for resurrection,<\/p>\n

learned to look at the grave and pray,<\/p>\n

“There, but for the Grace of God…”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The corn sways thinly amid the beans.<\/p>\n

A shower humbles the tulips.\u00a0 Ladies,<\/p>\n

listen: sixteen of my lives would lap-<\/p>\n

strake back to Jesus!\u00a0 I’m that old!<\/p>\n

And green with envy for an apple tree.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Casavecchia<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sandy says a centurion worked<\/p>\n

this farm, a fundus<\/em>, booty-bought<\/p>\n

after Actium.\u00a0 And Michelangelo<\/p>\n

when the Buonarroti’s owned it.<\/p>\n

Sandy, the two boys no longer<\/p>\n

boys, and our friends Mitch and Kate.<\/p>\n

The chianti’s grown and aged on site<\/p>\n

by Signor Buondonno, whose vines<\/p>\n

climb the darkening hill, hedged<\/p>\n

by fence from Bacchus-minded boars.<\/p>\n

Mitchell says, ‘in veritas,<\/em> wine.’<\/p>\n

The farmhouse terrace, thatched<\/p>\n

over, opens on groves of holly,<\/p>\n

olive and cypress, wind-worried<\/p>\n

shapes in the rain.\u00a0 We’re dry<\/p>\n

for the time being.\u00a0 A cuckoo counts<\/p>\n

to some impossible o’clock.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"