THE HATCHET

I hadn’t seen it for . . .
I’m guessing 45 years.
But when the auctioneer
held it up at my brother’s sale,
it was like seeing
a long lost friend.
Its main use, as I recall,
was for dispatching chickens.

You held the hen’s legs
in your left hand
and with your right
stretched its neck between
two spikes driven into a plank.
Then you cut off the head.
Sometimes, for laughs,
you could let go of the legs
and watch it flop around,
blood spattering the grass
until it lay twitching
a time or two or three and then stopped.
You did this only when
mother wasn’t there.

The auctioneer asked
a dollar to open the bidding.
I raised my hand. No one else did.
"Let’s add this and this"
he said, holding up
an almost new hammer and
an old tool of uncertain use.
The bidding stopped, I think,
at six dollars.
I’d have paid a lot more.

CONVERSATION

Last night it rained,
a good soaker, badly needed.
This morning I went out
to talk to my tomato plants.
They told me that they
appreciated my watering efforts,
they really did, but . . .
"We wouldn’t want you
to think we are ungrateful,"
the Beefmaster said,
"but that sprinkling can
of yours is . . . well . . . pathetic."
The others nodded in agreement.
A few of them tittered.
I mumbled something in reply
and tried not to act insulted.
There is, they and I both know,
no substitute for the Real Thing.

PASTOR IN THE EMPTY CHURCH

On a Monday morning early
when the first rays graze
only the tops of the back pews,
the solemn silence
beckons them back . . . the departed ones.

A few left in a huff,
shrugging off the rest of us
like a coat that came back
from the cleaners ruined.
Some drifted away wordless;
we wondered why;
now, years later, we wonder
what became of them.
Some grew up and left
to follow their dreams.
We hope they remember
the promise they made
to follow Jesus.
Some, so many, died,
and in this place
we sat and sang and cried.
Our losses multiplied.

I miss them all.
All.

AWAKENING

It was simple curiosity
Nothing more
Nine-year-old boys know
There is something creaturely
Different about girls
They just don’t know what
Which is why I stared
At Karen Rohrer
And Shirley Heisey
And Laura Mae Enterline
Especially Laura Mae Enterline
She was tall with long arms
She had eyes as blue as cornflowers
When she laughed
She opened her mouth wide
She had thin lips
She was different
Not like boys
Not even like the other girls
And she was older -- twelve
Looking at her
Made coming to school
Wonder full