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Landscape: Climbing
Whichever way the wind blows doesn’t really matter to me — Queen
1
Weathervane
Jesse wakes up, heads downstairs,
out the back door to find,
tilted to the side of our garage,
my ladder.
Careful climbing, I say.
Barefoot and Big-Bird-underweared,
he scuttles up the rungs,
crawls across the pebbled
Braille of asphalt shingles that leave
upon his knees red-speckled messages.
With a bolt between my lips,
wrench in hand I’m introducing a new cast
iron rooster to the roof.
Just learning the alphabet, Jesse
calls out the letters: N, E, S, W.
Cockadoodledo, he shouts.
The black metal bird pivots.
Jesse asks,
What will my direction be?
2
Pastureland
Jesse climbs over a cattle fence
into pastureland the sun’s been grazing
all day, slowly draining the trough,
slowly tongue-shining the salt lick.
He loves the quietude of cows—such tangible
animals, all tail-flick and skin ripple,
so identifiable by hide. The one with three
black-splotched continents on a sea
of white is Josephine. She swings
the great bucket of her head, a bell on her neck
clanging. How easy it is to be chewed
into the jaws of the day, the sweet-slobber
of cow-time munching minutes into milk.
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