in the John Day country
People who come back refuse to touch
what has been theirs, and in their speech
they give the words a twist, a foreign sound.
Cautiously they walk, wanting all they find
this time to be something else, for someone else.
Then each comes to a stop before the house
longest his, and in his perfect speech
repeats: “This is my house, and I am
still myself.” And that restarts the town.
Their fingers find again the grain of wood;
they memorize the promise of the land:
what curves reliably comes back right;
to a fence, responsibility is not obsolete.
One aims a single-shot and hears the muffled past
interject that old, flat, simple sound
the name of Daniel Boone’s psychiatrist.
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