TWO POEMS

by Patricia Fargnoli

 

EVIDENCE

When I walked in the forest it was April.
Deer pellets were mounded here and there
on fallen leaves and under low cedar branches.

Twice I saw scat--I couldn’t tell what it signified.
When I stopped to listen, the wild was silent
except for the rumble of the logging truck far away.

The duff was spongy beneath my sneakers.
I walked carefully and as far in as I dared,
trying to keep sight of the road and the field.

But the forest drew me into its vast density.
I lost the road, the field, and all sense of direction.
Once I bent to touch two waxy fingers

reaching up from the forest floor,
and once to run both palms over a stump
wholly green and soft with moss.

Near a marshy place, a wagon wheel leaned
against a hillock. It had been there so long
it was the antique green/brown of a Roman relic.

It began to rain.

Once I heard hooves snapping fallen branches.
They were always behind me.
I turned in a full circle; and turned again,

I saw nothing.
but I swear I heard some spirit go away
brushing its sharp antlers against the trees.

FROM A RENTED COTTAGE BY WINNISQUAM IN RAIN

In the Lake Region Hospital
someone I love is in danger, could be dying.
And because there is nothing else to be done,
I keep watch by writing
before a window pasted with old seeds
as the gray lake swallows the gray rain.

It is early evening
and the lake is tarnished silver
in the gradual disappearance of light.
In the shadows behind me, his shirt
is still flung on the chair back,
his toast crumbs still on the table.

The rain falls heavily from the eaves
like a song played over and over--a rhythm
that would slip anyone off to sleep.

Only I am not even tired
and I want the notes of the rain
to play like panpipes in the hidden places
where I think my soul lives.
I want them to take watery root there.
And he probably will be saved after all.
Only something that’s burst inside,
a small thing--nonessential and treatable.

And would you believe
that just now, beyond the window
and under the eaves,
in all the heavy downpouring--
in all the awful danger of drowning--
the smallest insect
darted up on its delicate gnat wings?

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