My Contact With Nature
I saw a deer
rounding a rocky outcrop in the distance
and a hawk soaring above me.
Another man might have had
his rifle cocked and ready to shoot,
brought down the deer,
shot the raptor from the sky.
I merely said,
"Wow, a deer"
and "is that a sharp-shinned
or a red-shouldered?"
Another man
would have
stood proud over a dead thing,
This man said
"Until next time."
Living Off the Land
It was something that happened in Vermont,
in a valley that paralleled the Green Mountains.
Dairy farms held their place on the beauty scale.
Even the long stretch of truck-less, mostly
car-less highway made its romantic move on me.
Likewise the tiny store and gas pump.
And the shop offering genuine Vermont cheese,
home-baked bread and pure maple syrup.
I spent a few days with friends, their property
half-grassy flats, half-hills itching to go higher.
They milked, they fed, they collected eggs,
and I tagged along.
I warred with a butting goat.
My hands were licked by the raspy tongue
of a new calf.
I growled with the dogs at the night noises.
I sat and chatted beneath a fully stocked rifle case.
"Coyotes," my friend said.
There was always the more daring one
who figured the grazing fields for its hunting grounds.
Books in the house were sparse.
The television was pre-cable.
There was as much music plucked on an heirloom mandolin
than took its cue from any radio.
Simplicity didn't rule their family like a Bible-beating autocrat
as it did with some folks.
It was the sixth sense, the wind by any other name.
Not even a diesel powered modern milking shed
could complicate their lives.
Nor dealing with the co-op.
In my time there, I was the odd one out
though less odd by the moment.
The breakfast table sold me.
A feast as young, as familiar, as the morning.
Only the coffee was a stranger.
The Pipe
Home from work,
he’d retreat to his parlor chair,
still in his gray suit,
extract his meerschaum pipe
from inside his jacket pocket
and the red tin of Velvet tobacco.
from his briefcase.
I’d watch in silence
as he packed the bowl,
flicked his lighter,
set the flakes afire,
placed the much-chewed mouthpiece
between his lips
as a steam of white smoke
was already curling its way
toward the ceiling.
A hard day
crackled peacefully in the embers.
The rough of life
smoothed into a sweet burnt smell.
My own problems barely registered
in the soothing sigh
of every hit he took.
He shaved in the morning,
snored at night
and smoked his pipe
in the early evening.
My orders were simple.
Don’t interrupt.
Age eleven was not an easy time for me.
I suffered from lack of interruption.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Sheepshead Review, Stand, Poetry Salzburg Review and Red Weather. Latest books, Covert, Memory Outside The Head and Guest Of Myself are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Washington Square Review and Open Ceilings.
I saw a deer
rounding a rocky outcrop in the distance
and a hawk soaring above me.
Another man might have had
his rifle cocked and ready to shoot,
brought down the deer,
shot the raptor from the sky.
I merely said,
"Wow, a deer"
and "is that a sharp-shinned
or a red-shouldered?"
Another man
would have
stood proud over a dead thing,
This man said
"Until next time."
Living Off the Land
It was something that happened in Vermont,
in a valley that paralleled the Green Mountains.
Dairy farms held their place on the beauty scale.
Even the long stretch of truck-less, mostly
car-less highway made its romantic move on me.
Likewise the tiny store and gas pump.
And the shop offering genuine Vermont cheese,
home-baked bread and pure maple syrup.
I spent a few days with friends, their property
half-grassy flats, half-hills itching to go higher.
They milked, they fed, they collected eggs,
and I tagged along.
I warred with a butting goat.
My hands were licked by the raspy tongue
of a new calf.
I growled with the dogs at the night noises.
I sat and chatted beneath a fully stocked rifle case.
"Coyotes," my friend said.
There was always the more daring one
who figured the grazing fields for its hunting grounds.
Books in the house were sparse.
The television was pre-cable.
There was as much music plucked on an heirloom mandolin
than took its cue from any radio.
Simplicity didn't rule their family like a Bible-beating autocrat
as it did with some folks.
It was the sixth sense, the wind by any other name.
Not even a diesel powered modern milking shed
could complicate their lives.
Nor dealing with the co-op.
In my time there, I was the odd one out
though less odd by the moment.
The breakfast table sold me.
A feast as young, as familiar, as the morning.
Only the coffee was a stranger.
The Pipe
Home from work,
he’d retreat to his parlor chair,
still in his gray suit,
extract his meerschaum pipe
from inside his jacket pocket
and the red tin of Velvet tobacco.
from his briefcase.
I’d watch in silence
as he packed the bowl,
flicked his lighter,
set the flakes afire,
placed the much-chewed mouthpiece
between his lips
as a steam of white smoke
was already curling its way
toward the ceiling.
A hard day
crackled peacefully in the embers.
The rough of life
smoothed into a sweet burnt smell.
My own problems barely registered
in the soothing sigh
of every hit he took.
He shaved in the morning,
snored at night
and smoked his pipe
in the early evening.
My orders were simple.
Don’t interrupt.
Age eleven was not an easy time for me.
I suffered from lack of interruption.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Sheepshead Review, Stand, Poetry Salzburg Review and Red Weather. Latest books, Covert, Memory Outside The Head and Guest Of Myself are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Washington Square Review and Open Ceilings.
