Tag: kingfisher

63 Ingredients from the Frontier

~ johnbrandall

1

When a place changes your life you need to sing about it.  And you ought to.  You can’t allow anyone, anything, or any other place to get in your way. 

2

Most of my packing is done.  I’ll be leaving headquarters and heading out to the frontier.  I’ve had to pack a little earlier than expected because someone else will be moving into my room here first thing tomorrow.

I still need to roll up my air mat, do some grocery shopping, pack the cooler, slice up some cheese, make a couple bags of beans ‘n’ rice, fill the big water container, fill the solar shower, and make detailed records bit-by-bit as the hour of departure draws more near.

3

Impeachment coverage on public radio.  Highway 100 headed out of town, headed to the frontier.  Look out Mr. President, look out cedars.  Missouri ground white with snow, the sun not strong enough to melt it...


Read the full short story here...

Goes Away

~ johnbrandall

Where one leak seemed fixed, another springs up.  Well, isn’t that the way it goes?  Stained wood, stained mattress.  Damp kitchen, scary room.

Stove going.  I was in the dirty attic.  Three-legged chairs, canceled checks, dauber nests by the hundred.  I go up there because the attic is my place to intercept the rain that finds its way through the farmhouse’s old, fallible roof.  Like me, the rain keeps returning, keeps coming back to this remote piece of cattle country in the middle of the state.  

A mist rises from the pasture, hangs there like a cloud.  Above, the sky is clear.  There is, thank God, no wind.  It is still.  I can hear nothing but the nothing that is, the nothing that once will be everything.  If you would be so kind as to scatter my ashes here.  If you would allow me to play the part of the sandstone, to let the water through.

The mice are back.  Two traps, old cheese, picked clean.  Leave the droppings where they lay.  Wise rodents.  Re-bait, try again...


A short missive from Farm, from late last year...

Sink, Swim, or Fly

~ johnbrandall

1.

There is a lone goose on a vanishing dock.  The lakewater is up. The floating dock’s platform is gone from sight but a railing moored to the dock is still above the surface, barely.  Like the railing, the goose appears to be standing on water. As the dock dips further the goose has three options: sink, swim, or fly.

2.

Rattle across the water, washboard blues and white streak through the air.  Look out minnows! It’s the kingfisher, flying from weeping willow to vanishing dock. It finds purchase on the railing, stuck there like a feathered magnet.

3.

Saturday morning, more rain overnight, the dock is further submerged but inches below the surface the platform still remains.  The heron knew it was there, trust in its water landing. In the fog, the heron keeps watch o’er the lake.  


To continue with this short prose poem...