Three Poems

Journal of a Busy VA Planter Five missed entries. Little time to write of late. Country at War. Last week Jameson ran across tobacco breathless. Waving arms. Yelling. Chicken-like (Mary A. thought wife’s labour must finally be impending). Calmed him down. Heard the news: “They set Fir to the town! Some gone missing and some ded.” In reparation for York, R-Coats broke in, held mock session, drank toast to President, subsequently stole pair of his glittering rhinestone buckles and, in an insult of the most extreme gravity, took many personal love letters. (M’s reply: “Damned Rascals”) By the B for record’s sake, M is hundred pound snippet of man. Insufferable at parties. Own impression: At T’s affair last spring had strong urge to set down wine, go jump in Chesapeake. (Thank God for Dolly— when she dips a little snuff and laughs). State of things sadly altered. Congress meeting in Hotel. Cabinet in Post Office. After four days of wondrously seized-up bowels, a welcome turn.   Josiah Do not trouble the horse’s foot on Sabbath Day. If bad company corrupts, forswear thy new boon companion who always speaks with such love and pity of the “LAWLESS territories,” gold glint maggot gleaming in his eye as he takes too much bread at our fire. Last night the moon stayed shrouded and I was fitful—finally dreaming his wanton sideburns had crawled all the way into his mouth. When I see men swarming over ageless rocks in order to scratch their own three sad initials, I fear us an indistinguishable part of this flesh streaming West, wound that never stops scurrying across broke chests and dropped oxen bone. Josiah. You saw my sister first. Gave her a book of essays and a green ribbon. Grew impatient. Rooted, she bequeathed me her straw Charleston hat. When I wear it you now and then touch its brim— sometimes too fondly, I think.   Matthew Fitzpatrick Suppose the day of our birth the day of our great loss. And as the lung filled like a sail all things shattered to shards of tree and face and stone —that first evening setting us down shorn and bewildered— stripped corn in an alien field. Suppose before the first hour broke all the memories were already gathered sun-stitched green-leafed while we who did not know bodies lingered in the river beneath minnows darting [tab15]resting[/tab15] resting [tab15]in the long cool curve[/tab15]