Harvester

I’ve been called a liar seven times
For what I’m claiming here, but any angel
Winging through the shimmering Texas sky
Can verify the truth that I’ve been singing.

In the unbaked center of a windless
Neches day, I sprawled beneath the greeny
Shade of corrugated fiberglass
And sipped a canned Lone Star to its lees.

Inside the trailer sat a wicker basket
Choked with bills I hadn’t opened yet,
And locusts in the trees berated even
Modest twists on baleful thermostats.

So there I was, tendons idling, aging
Like a redneck count, counting in
My mind how many beers remained on deck
(I tolerate the swelter better when buzzed).

When I slid my elbow over the gritty
Glassy surface of the patio table
(Borrowed from the pleasant hellcat I was
Renting from), I saw a scrabbling brown

Something stop its movement near my joint –
A daddy longlegs pausing by the pond.
The place from where I’d plucked my Texas beer
Was now a perfect circle of the water

That had beaded on the can. And as
I kept my stillness, that old daddy longlegs
Sidled up and did a push-up just
Atop the ring of H2O. He dipped

His tawny body and he touched the ring
And I could see it quiver from the sips
He drew from it. And when some minutes passed,
He rose again and sat with me in leggy

Satisfaction. Then an oven breeze
Began to push the dust across the yard,
And the hour for daddy longlegs to
Return to cooler lairs was ushered in,

So I watched him click away and find
A crack between the boards, and I never
Cut a sign of him again. But he’s
Vivid in my heart on days when I

Am fighting heat with water, hops, and beechwood –
Aged something, and I lift a can
Or bottle and remind myself I’ve made
A watering hole for tiny livestock thirst.

~ copyright 2008 by Wheeler MacPherson

Within A Fifteen Minute Walk

Through an Appalachian music festival
In that most rare of public places: an actual
Thriving downtown square – not the phony
Gentrified approximation attempted
By so many carpet-bagging pukes.
No, a real downtown, with drugstore lunch
Counter and a shop where snap-button

Shirts are not the smirking owner’s bone.
The stores were doing local business, aloof
To what the hard-voiced tourists bought, or didn’t,
So we got some lemonade (they jewed us
On the citrus!) and we bought some books
And strolled from stage to stairs while feeding on
The scary Celtic comfort of the banjo,

Fiddle, voice, and mandolin. While we
Stood before the courthouse walls (refurbished
By Confederate daughters and their love
For all that’s gone), we watched a herd of children
Tuning up in preparation for
A concert on the stops, and we were moved
To raise our brows to incongruity:

A colored boy, no more than eight or nine,
Was rosining his fiddle strings and waiting
For his chance to scrape the bow. In
Another minute, we both shrugged and smiled,
Remarking that at least his energies
Were aimed at something higher than the base.
And later, as we climbed towards our truck,

We passed another boy, and this one was
A ghetto-fed disgrace. His tentlike shirt,
Enormous shorts, and urban scowl presented
Such an air that just one word would name it
Right. And worst of all, his backwards cap
Almost concealed his hair: Hibernian red.
Perhaps he prays his freckles will melt together.

~ copyright 2008 by Wheeler MacPherson

A Sparkling Prank

There weeps a woman over her semi-centuried,
Burger-biting, hops-savoring, rough-

Palmed husband, believing him to have dropped
Onto his office floor without a single

Forecast, forsaken by his pump and pipes.
And at the scooped-out hillside, between the granite

Sentries, there a girl drenches a Kleenex,
Watching the wife, grateful that the matron

(Widowed now) will never know the way
He really went. Author of a sparkling

Prank, the girl had come behind the man;

Undetected mischief drove her fingers
To his ribs. She jabbed, he groaned and grabbed

His plate and tottered to the desk while all
Her laughter broke apart. He purpled up

And glanced at her before his final puff,
And then his stay was over. And when the wife

Was notified, essential truths in mister’s
Final narrative were altered and

Deleted to protect the incidental
Murderess (who even now observes

The leavings of a marriage and considers
That she’s a boll in this relentless gin).

~ copyright 2008 by Wheeler MacPherson

The Doctrine Of Election

“How does it happen?” asked the old prophet
Who kept on seeing. He went on to describe
A weakling’s hour of loss from years before:
A fair girl, at her counter, at her
Register, earning textbooks, clearing her path,
And a dark boy prowling for conquest,
Glutted with someone else’s guilt, invited
Her into his appetites, and when she declined,
He stabbed back with “Are you prejudiced?”
And in a mere three spins of the sun
And four more unfair tries, the dark boy
Took his prize and she was undefended
And ruined. So the old prophet sat
In the familiar curve of his worn saddle
And spoke again and told of how a land
Could raise a king from among the strangers by using
That same skillful guilt, and how the dark
King would drowse and smile and sleep off
The murder of an extended family. The old
Prophet was not killed outright, but he
Was driven and banished, still watching his own
Stupid kind, separated forever by the
Muddy current of some unsounded river.


~ copyright 2008 by Wheeler MacPherson

Aisle Three Revelation

We didn’t start that way, didn’t intend
To ape the bunker-minded in our plans
To set aside enough in case provisions
Rose in price at rocketing rates the way
The treacherous unleaded had done. No, we merely

Started to salt away an extra bag
Of beans, an additional sack of grain, a box
Or two of double-ought prayers – just in case.
And about that time we caught the whiff of news
Of rationed rice and stern denunciations

Against hoarding from the lackeys on the
Hill. A fact began to settle down
Into our minds: the world is changing, and
Our sleek and vapid fatness is no more.
So today we stood in line and watched

A slovenly girl rake our goods across
The bleeping barcode scanner’s face and slide
Them down to where a grizzled sixty-eight
Year-old retrieved and tucked them deep within
Some flimsy plastic pokes. And when the clerk

Had waved our Valu-Card before the scanner’s
Eye, I felt the chill of unexpected
Revelation: someone, somewhere now can
Itemize exactly what we’ve bought and
When. So cheaper pottage is our fare.


~copyright 2008 by Wheeler MacPherson

Culminations On Hillsides

I came here with purpose in my fists
And questions behind my teeth: will this place

Soften me (there is much of the
Buffing wheel, the rug-beater’s paddle
In these acres) or will this place

Harden me (even sinking a post
Makes me look over my shoulder, expecting

The specter that Abel saw at last)?
But such questions creep away, cowed
By the noise of regular days on a

Plait of created earth. I take greater
Care now, even in the smallest things

Because I know that a leg crossed thoughtlessly
For too long means that one of tomorrow’s
Chores will haunt me, undone. But in the evening’s

Arms, I sigh toward the West, where the old
Ones now rest, and one lone answer settles

Down upon my struggling bones, down
Upon my weakened grip, down upon
My fading blue irises, down

Upon the broken jars in my yard:
And it’s this - that I came here to die.

~ copyright 2008 by Wheeler MacPherson

The Lack Of Shadows

The sun is just below the horizon, and
It has been this way for many cycles -
Still as stone. The sky is bruised and brooding,

Scattering just enough light to help us
Not to bash ourselves to death while we
Pick our way among the ruins and the

Ribcages. No division of light from darkness,
No joy in the journey of the flaming orb
Across the sky’s concave expanse; now

We have only gray and gray, smudged
Days, shadows beneath our sentry eyes
But no shadows of our children on

The face of the fields, no shadow
Of tomatoes against the garden floor.
Those who still speak say that we

Now have perpetual dawn. But
My scattered nation knows that this is
Relentless sundown, heralding the black.


~ copyright 2008 by Wheeler MacPherson

No Accent

Our granddaughters are as secure with her as
Our son’s joy, and we have welcomed her
With all the blood that she can comprehend.
But even though her artist’s eye commands
The waters, oils, acrylics, strokes, and lines,
Her breast contains no poetry. And this
Bad lack confounds and grieves my cold frame of a

Heart. Just the other day, we sat
And laughed at tiny fists and coos and drying
Blossoms of mother’s milk on cheeks, and as
They dozed, I made the observation that
Right now, the girls were basking in the last
Real peace they’ll ever know this side of Gabriel’s
Tone. And while the others in the room

Agreed and stared with comprehension into
Private worried air, she asked (with perfect,
Bled pronunciation and Formica
Yankee smile), “What’s that mean?” So I
Shook my head and changed the topic, wishing
She could truly know the anger and the
Tears of Appomattox, and the Boer.

~ copyright 2008 by Wheeler MacPherson