Monday, November 10, 2008
Monday Poem
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The Hunter
Jim Culleny![]()
I hike up a hill at a clip
just to keep this heart alive.The Hunter’s over my left shoulder
with arms raised, always
in his almost-never-ending black
place in the sky surrounded by
blazing stars in utter space.
Skirting single Cheryl’s
I wonder again, what is it she does.
In summer her shingled ranch
is ablaze with lilies.
She works them with a goofy hat
stopping now and then to swab sweat.
I watch while beyond the blue
Orion stands with his legs apart.
“I’ll live near forever,” he mocks,
and his belt-stars testify.
I pick the pace up now and feel
the suck of cool air into my lungs.
At the hill’s top, the road’s crown
is the pate of a disturbed
menace standing; straining
beneath asphalt; bending it up.
A cleat-pocked phone pole’s
draped lifeline-wires
disappear into the dark.An old sugar maple’s there too,
its cleft bark bathed in amber sodium vapor,
bare limbs a wild, strobed lattice
moving at my pace as I pass.While the Hunter in the background,
knees ever sprung for action
perseverates for years and years,
I whistle past the graveyard popping Lipitor.
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Posted by Jim Culleny at 09:49 AM | Permalink