THE THREAT

Each morning the old poet walks out
the back door with ax and saw into the wide
 
forest surrounding. His ax bites into
fallen trees and wood chips spark up
 
out of the cut. Saw teeth gnaw the grain
of downed branches until even his beard is
 
covered in sawdust. This is mountainous
California, where fire is the second name
 
of Douglas fir and wind. If someone says,
“red cedar,” the old poet exhales fire.
 
If another mentions Pearly-Everlasting
blossoming in the forest, the old poet
 
whispers fire. When the diner in town serves
cutthroat trout from Spirit Lake, the old poet
 
sees the red stripe of the gill plate as fire’s
outer curve. He knows fire will find him
 
sooner or later so he clears the under-
brush around his cabin. Even his dreams flame
 
from bough to bough, clawing tree by tree
at the sky. His heart flames blood to scalp, to
 
fingers gripping wooden handles. In his eyes
spirit-flames kiss that beard and lick the hem
 
of his daughter’s dress. Each morning the old
poet swings ax deeper into the forest.
 
He gathers the cutting of brush and tree limb
to heat his cabin. Come October’s full
 
moon, he burns this wood to bake mooncakes
and into the night swallows its fire.

All winter he stares into the stove
and mouths fire to the glacial ghosts
 
who mark time with him as they swap
stories
until the snows melt and the streams crest
 
their banks. The old ghosts know fire is
coming.
And each day the poet walks ax and saw
 
deeper, swings ax and saw deeper into
the flesh of fire to save his life.

A FULL MOON IN SWITZERLAND

The Alps alter all perspective.
From the balcony of Hotel Bruening
in Hergiswil near Luzern, the full
 
August moon rises at the same angle
Mt. Pilatus slopes its black bulk
to the lake whose dark water
 
ripples and dims the light reflected
as the moon struggles to lift
above the line of rock and gravity.
 
I wonder how deep into the deep lake
the moon’s light knifes, if salmon
huddle in those depths to ward off
 
this monthly terror. I wonder that
this same moon’s light earlier shone
on the fragments of bodies
 
at the embassy bombed in Nairobi,
or on the wet cheeks of the families
of the dead gathered to mourn.
 
The lights of a fisherman’s boat
glide to the dock with barely a sound.
I wonder if he caught the big one.
 
Ninety degree heat and humidity
in these mountains. The world changing
right before our eyes. Old people
 
dying. Governments struck dumb.
I suck ice from a drained glass
on this balcony in August, waiting for
 
a breeze, and wonder how many people
use this time to watch this same moon
push through their small square of night.

© Copyright, 2011, Gary Metras,
All rights reserved.