Good poem, Sue

SallyE

on 2/3/03 3:40 pm, Sue Scalf at [log in to unmask] wrote:

> Christina, Marilyn, Arthur, Colin, here is a revision.
>
>
> Descendant
>
>
> Of the Woodland Period, Fully Hafted
>
>
> In a Virginia cave
> it lay perhaps a thousand years
> buried in sand, until that summer day
> my father held it in his hands.
> Only fourteen, he was dumbstruck,
> silent for once, knowing history,
> knowing it was something
> too valuable to lose.
>
> When he was nearly ninety,
> I asked him to will it to me.
> He said, "Things have a way
> of getting away from us. You better
> take it now."  His arthritic hands
> looked for all the world like any caveman's.
> We both clasped cold stone, and time was no more
> than a long scroll, unwinding three thousand years.
> "I wonder how many hands have held this," I said,
> and felt the sting of tears.  Esau and Isaac,
> the passing of a blessing. . .
>
> Now he is gone, and I hold the ax,
> see blue-veined, thin-skinned,
> gentle hands, awkward, nervous hands,
> fingers once stained by nicotine,
> always moving as he told his tales.
> Beyond his hands are others,
> greasy, dark and scarred, and mine
> overlapping.  I hear the long howl
> of wolves, hungry beneath the shadows
> of trees, see their matted coats
> in the dim light of setting sun.
>
> Carved in little triangles here and there,
> ticks that measured time decorate the dark
> surface, time that passed until it wore the ax
> to half its length.  Outliving the dust of men,
> bison, wolves, and wolverine, it rests now
> as I lift it to the light and ponder
> past and future, all those hands.