Stop, stop

 

water/sky
birdbath collage

Stop, stop 

 

Death’s dark door stands open

day and night.  But to retrace

your steps and get back

to the upper air, that is the task,

that is the undertaking.

                                           Virgil

                                           The Aeneid (II.172-177)

 

 

They’ll be no break

in the clouds today.  Likely

the night will hum,

 

a full-length flatbed

on the highway going north

to the papermill,

 

coming south

from the papermill.  I like

the round chimney

 

I can just glimpse

in the opening between

the trees, higher

 

than the pines and cedars.

What do men and women do

in there.  I mean,

 

I know, but then,

do I?  The last time I really

thought about the mill

 

was years ago, trying

to imagine my father

falling from the icy catwalk

 

erected above the belts

and saws and bark strippers,

the weight of the world

 

pushing into him

invisible, the heaviest weight

we will ever know.  I imagine it

 

to be the same

color as the sky, but as reflected

in the half-

 

full bowl of the bird bath:

shifting in the earth

with the tremble of all

 

those semis on 202.  North

or south.  Up, getting loaded,

and then down, breakless

 

until the break is

gears and saws and hollering

Stop! STOP!

 

his mangled left paw

gloveless, seemingly finger

less, like a small bomb

 

went off under the sky

of the palm

of his hand.