Listen: we were working in the woods
on Laurel Mountain somewhere, and the rain
against our roof that rusted, a windless rain
dripped all night in the tangles of our hair—
all night the trickle of rain across our faces.
We covered the four barrel with gunny sacks
and still the rain soaked through them. In the morning
three men together left the cabin, marched
into the hemlock woods that smelt of rain.
Three twisted men together in the woods,
two of them sawing a hemlock tree and one
who faced them chopping. Hlis axe-head broke,
slipped from the wet helve and one man fell.
Grunting he fell on his knees in the cold moss,
Wiped blood away from his eyes, cursed God and died.
Reuben and Simeon: we were his two sons,
his tall sons twisted with their anger, cold
with hatred for his body. Spring was late.
Corn froze that year in June. The woods were bare.
We hollowed out a grave in the empty woods,
laid him among the hemlock roots face down
and fetched a spray of dogwood for his hair—
I don’t know why——then shovelled the dirt In,
burrowing with our hands and feet. The ram
beat steadily on our shoulders hunched in prayer
against a tall God like a hemlock tree,
his arms like crooked branches, his head bare,
his voice a cold rain dripping in the moss,
and hemlock needles tangled in hs hair.
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