The Maynard
Fall 2020

Netsuke

Roots of birch attach river to river
bank: a taut fist.
                          How to hold that branching—

Last time I lay on the grass
            in the itch, the full scent of mint and risk
and looked at the sky I was another—

The river       that gray tumult             has wooled me out
or      into      my self,              what revolution
against life’s blight                  think of the ghost of elms—

Here, sap sings sticky,            air veins birdsong,
river rends ears open against—        through glass—

How to compress, miniaturize—
freckled granite, flowing water, peeling birch

into solid form: a charm-stone built
to ward off the catastrophe of the daily—

Tie its carved weight against me. Ballast.