Arrowwood
for Forrest Gander
southern viburnum amid the laurel
among the spruce and hemlock
on ridges stalked by the Cherokee
and did not the green stems offer
the trim and narrow the true wood
for shafts? wrens nesting in the forks
rendered feathers the color of bark
for fletching leaf shape arrowpoint
a bird’s beating heart the roots
were perfect for lashing the flint
tight so its missile could sing in flight
and sometimes the hunter kept
to shadows used the blue berries
for lure and sometimes he killed
a partridge in the remnant limbs
and cut a spit and kindling but other
times the man in stealth heard
the wind’s voice where it gathered
in the boughs and gave it heed
and matched his steps to the rhythm
and sped along the dampened path
under a sky as dark as bartered tea
Grackle
When the Empress Hsi Ling-Shi,
veiled in imperial ennui,
lifted the floss floating in her glazed bowl
of tea and unraveled the skein
of the silk worm’s cocoon
for the very first time,
could she have foreseen
a world of robes and banners,
kimonos musical against the skin
and soothing to the eye as the sheen
of her vessel or the blue-green
shine of a new-fallen bird’s feathers
rubbed by morning sunshine,
and if so should I wish
to thank that lady as you kiss
your flesh with bird-print silk?
Listening to the sleeve’s wide whisper,
should I weave, against a world
as common as cotton,
a replenishing shrine high
in the hospitable mulberry tree?
Patois
Haze in the orchard
white as a harp’s voice.
Each word has fluent
roots, and we love
to believe in the way
syllables flower, how
each noise arises
from the Latin, Saxon,
African and Norse,
the manner of wood
forming, sleek apples
like hearts or a legion
of lance-pointed leaves.
Formal, the marriage
of blossom to blossom,
the priest bee transforming
pollen. From each branch
a single soloist stepping
forth from the chorus,
a bird sowing melody,
quick weft threading
the orchard’s warp,
one verb in its slow arc
entering the soil,
smooth as a seed.
R. T. Smith edits Shenandoah for Washington and Lee University, where he also serves as Writer-in-Residence. His sixth book of stories, Doves in Flight, published in 2017, and his 14th book of poems, Summoning Shades, is due later in the year. Smith has work forthcoming in Five Points, Southern Review, and Southern Humanities Review. He lives on Timber Ridge in Rockbridge County, Virginia.Read poetry by R. T. Smith previously appearing in Terrain.org: Letter to America, two poems, three poems.
Header photo by Public Domain Pictures, courtesy Flickr.
