i
if i were cleverer
i might know the motion of the leaves
and soil in winter, where i just see
the forest’s carpet of brown bones,
just the deer and february
birds, them that stay.
ii
but i am not clever,
nor am i good nor ordered, oh,
all i am is luck,
iii
the embodiment of it, luck that can
reject a city only to come back a few years
later and take liberties with the goodness
of folks and drive a day up 29 in dark rain
unworried by money, unworried by the future,
unworried by others, pulling in and out
of tightsqueeze (pittsylvania county, where there
is a food lion) with an inward laugh,
unworried by the damage of my hands and
the damage of my eyes that would
not look on you in pain.
iv
all i am is luck, who could hide from it
in asheville with near strangers,
kneel by the waters of badin
full of tender pity for my own self,
by the brown yadkin nobly decide not to end it all,
a martyr to martyrdom and a prophet too.
v
we earn so little of what we have;
it hardly seems worth mentioning
unless to comment that what happened
after badin and bethania grief and all that nonsense
felt a lot like hell and looks a lot
like heaven, far away now,
now that i can see it.
vi
all i am is luck,
such that i would see this woods
and think it all a dead and ugly place
ignorant of what is being prepared;
of the hadedas, too,
all the hadedas
in melville.
