The Hills Can Tell
http://www.maverickmagazine.com/articles/463/1/The-Hills-Can-Tell-/Page1.html
Todd Fredson
Todd Fredson’s poetry and non-fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Poetry International, Blackbird, Court Green, 42 Opus, American Poetry Review, Puerto del Sol, Gulf Coast, RUNES, Slush Pile and other journals. He is the Director of Programming at the McReavy House Museum of Hood Canal. He lives in the Skokomish Valley, with his wife, Sarah Vap, and their sons.By Todd Fredson
Published on 05/12/2010
The hills can tell
by how flat your eyes are
how near a thing has become.
Dogs and wolves share a denning instinct.
To dig down.
The straw is a calendar.
by how flat your eyes are
how near a thing has become.
Dogs and wolves share a denning instinct.
To dig down.
The straw is a calendar.
The hills can tell
by how flat your eyes are
how near a thing has become.
Dogs and wolves share a denning instinct.
To dig down.
The straw is a calendar.
What I mean is, my memory
is like my friend who looked down,
his bed-frame torn
into a bed-frame for dawn.
The invited men hide palm wine in the latrine.
These stones, which have known
footsteps different from those of the tide,
are rank with seaweed
crusted in the sun.
Bare feet, you have known me
as a child with brown leaves pasted beneath my toes,
balls of my feet scalded, whorls
smeared like the air
drawn through a one-armed windmill.
All day the hills come down.
And we fill our cups
to keep our childhood stitches from coming loose.
Maybe we were in love.
Fingertips poised
to save those two boys in our bodies
slipping up the beach of wet stones.
by how flat your eyes are
how near a thing has become.
Dogs and wolves share a denning instinct.
To dig down.
The straw is a calendar.
What I mean is, my memory
is like my friend who looked down,
his bed-frame torn
into a bed-frame for dawn.
The invited men hide palm wine in the latrine.
These stones, which have known
footsteps different from those of the tide,
are rank with seaweed
crusted in the sun.
Bare feet, you have known me
as a child with brown leaves pasted beneath my toes,
balls of my feet scalded, whorls
smeared like the air
drawn through a one-armed windmill.
All day the hills come down.
And we fill our cups
to keep our childhood stitches from coming loose.
Maybe we were in love.
Fingertips poised
to save those two boys in our bodies
slipping up the beach of wet stones.