Possum Pouch

Black Stone 5

COLD MORNING BREAKS through windows. There are tiny yellow blooms on the bullbine and a red wagon holds a thin layer of ice. A woodpecker gurgles or burbles somewhere near and a chorus of grackles cracks the air with shrill blasts. K wears his red buckaroo shirt, jumping from chair to couch. The gravel drive is striated with shadows. Trashcans are lined in a path of light. And the coffee eases me open to the noisy quiet. Now we turn on the Teletubbies and I see that chinaberry down in the yard through a corner of the window. It glistens in last night's dew. Spread goat cheese on crackers. Watch seeds and crumbs with small chunks of white cheese spread out on his shirt. "A last first people," hypnotized by machines. The urge to document fills me this morning, attendant to historical particulars. Like how for instance the closing of the Middle Border ca. WWI occasioned the beginning of the end of Midwest life. According to the old practice, what you put into the land was equal to its return—a devastated relation for us who give little, taking as we can. There's no reconciling this condition. Nothing I want to fix. But let's be clean about it. Don't gush over this new life without looking to that negrido. The black center holds.