Drone & Buck
       

Where in the continent of heart
is a border across which bare feet
advance? Meaning: how can a story proceed
if no one is willing to lay down arms, to free
arms of burdens war asks them to bear. Here:
sugar maple tapped to its core lisps a thin
mystical blood into a tipped pail.
Here: paper scribbled by wasps
so a place might exist. . . .

Wherever eyes turn, evidence
of invention: roan mare whose blinders
spare her regrets a glance back
might foster.... White goat for friendship
tethered to a silver stake in field's center
bleats against wind to make one think
a ventriloquist's near. . . .

Where in heart's cold tract
is to be found a dry match to kindle
something: hope or knowledge? Meaning
is slippery as time at times and then, right there
where a voice tries to eke itself from a throat
sore from reasoning with rain, out comes
capital T truth and everyone must look
away as for solar eclipses. God,
how bright that is! How can belief

whir like a machine if the heart's no
longer plugged in? War wrote the student
is raw. And that seemed about right. Not profound
exactly but clever. Each beast grazing here has
little say nor care most likely in matters
bothering human days. Drone and buck, bleat
and snort . . . Soft music of all things
emptying out: some resisting, others
with ease. Wing, hoof, horn.
Tail slapping away whatever lands.

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Copyright © 2011 Katrina Roberts All rights reserved
from Underdog
The University of Washington Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission