In the Gathers of the World

[Boydstun]

 

The Song

 

The world and you are with me.

It and you make and move me.

I make and move in the world and you.

 

Now was will be it is.

It is pass we pace.

It is field we trace.

It is trait we lace.

We it we live, of it, of we.

 

The world and I are with you.

It and I make and move you.

You make and move in the world and me.

[Boydstun]

 

Yes

 

In the gathers of the world,

    its clouds, its lakes and hills.

 

In the gathers of the world,

    its plains, its woods and shades.

 

In the gathers of the world,

    our fields, our grains and rails.

 

In the gathers of the world,

    our tombs, our tools and words,

    this yes, this you, this me.

[Boydstun]

 

Once

[Boydstun]

Wooden Spool

Mother had fashioned of thick thread

a harness for the summer locust, 

thread run through the hole of the empty spool,

the locust to pull across the floor,

the children to smile.

 

None could know

the invisible thread

spool-full, the rough unwindings

of tomorrows and dreams,

tough rewindings, revisions.

 

The older boy to marriage and break

and poverty and roughneck

and loss of one arm

and women lost and wealth won

and death by cancer at fifty-four.

 

The younger boy to no woman,

no child, to books and pen ablaze,

to man life-love, from nineteen,

same age, to that man’s death at forty-one.

Orbits six more, to new man life-love.

 

The young girl, alone Mother’s own child,

to marriage, children, and theirs,

to failed health, non-stop pain,

and death at sixty-six.

 

That summer, its locusts,

that wooden spool a while more

in the second boy alone

still unwinding the invisible to visible.