Dear Sue,
I felt this would be improved by judicious trimming - there seems to be
quite a bit of repetition. A few specific points below. Aplogies if there
are of no interest.
Kind regards,
  grasshopper

----- Original Message -----
From: "Sue Scalf" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, March 01, 2003 7:57 PM
Subject: [THE-WORKS] new one: descendant


> Descendant
>
>
>            Of the Woodland Period, Fully Hafted
>
>
> In a Virginia cave
> it lay there 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-suggest omitting this, replacing it with 'was')
> 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
(Can't see reason for line break here)
> take it now."  His arthritic hands
> looked for all the world like any caveman's
(I'd omit 'for all the world' -and why would a caveman's hands be arthritic?
A caveman could be quite young.)
> We both clasped it, 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 I thought.
> (Going from three thousand years to Genesis is a bit of a jolt, I feel,
and the connotations of the stories of Esau and Isaac don't sit too
comfortably in the context of this poem)
> Now he is gone, and in my hand 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.
(too much of a list of modifiers here, I felt)
> Beyond his hands are others
> greasy, dark and scarred, and mine
> overlapping.
>(Are your hands beyond, like the previous hands?
  I think you've lost grip of the placement here)
                       I hear the long howl
of wolves, hungry beneath the shadows
> of trees, see their shining teeth aglow
(Do you need 'shining' and 'aglow' ?)
> in the dim light of setting sun.
(mention of the animals would be best omitted here, I think.
The reference in the last stanza may be enough)
>
> Carved in little triangles here and there,
> ticks that measured time decorate the dark
(can't see reason for line break there)
> 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 remember
(Can you remember things you haven't seen or known? Think of, imagine,
perhaps?)
> all those hands.
>
> Sue Scalf
>