Yes, this is a real cracker now.



bw
James





>From: Sue Scalf <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Descendant FINAL version (hopefully) Better?
>Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2003 12:13:49 EST
>
>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,
>aware of  history,  knowing the ax
>as 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.
>Take it now."
>His arthritic hands, large-knuckled,
>looked like any caveman's.
>We both clasped cold stone,
>and time was no more than a long scroll,
>unwinding thousands of 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. . .
>ours, a kind of ritual of its own.
>
>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 dim light, knowing the solid weight
>could fend off whatever moved.
>
>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,
>all we keep, all we pass on.
>
>Sue Scalf


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