A Selection from Once in Vermont by Bob Arnold Gnomon Press, 1999

SUN UP I get up with The birds who Get up with me
	SHOW ME I don’t walk this Early morning, frost On the mowing, but you do — And when you return I’m sitting by the Cookstove warm as you bend To shiver my neck a kiss — Show me what I missed
HERMIT I’m the one who stacked This stove wood ten cords Deep under the roof of a Broad woodshed, and sawed Old pine boards across To make a dutch door for Its entry, and now I enjoy How daylight squints into this Burrow where round logs are Pulled down to split each day If you like you can find me Talking to myself busting apart Ash sticks with a favorite Hatchet, its head weight just Right, filling a kitchen basket — Nothing like a simple tool that works And when slipping the clear ribs Of a whole snakeskin out of Soft curled bark of yellow birch — I remember that tree cut down But this visitor I missed
	IS IT river flowing beneath the stars or stars flowing over the river
SON OF A BITCH The old man is a something else Son of a bitch — no other way to Think of it, even though it isn’t Exactly kind, but that’s the way it is. He’d bitch at you, he’d bitch at me, Give him a topic — weather, taxes, School budget, road maintenance, local Politics — the first person in to see His son at the town garage, the last person. You knew what would be said as soon as You left, you almost wanted it to Begin while you were still there. Give him time, he’s heading that way. Has helped his son at work on truck Engines for the last twenty years and Is now past seventy, wool capped, Glasses, blunt forehead, all shoulders In a sweatshirt no matter when I see Him, even picking strawberries up on One of the sunny hills across town, but He is almost friendly when doing that. A gorgeous garden, peas are always up By early May, and he has a way and Tenderness to work in asparagus and Bushels of raspberries on the small Vegetable bed he plows by the side Of the road. Plants his bush peas Roadside to shed dust that rises From an overpopulated back road; How those neighbors fly. He has bitched And stamped so many years about the New hoard that his language and treatment On the subject is abbreviated to A shake of his head — he knows you Understand even though you weren’t Born here — the key to what it means To be native in this old man’s eyes, Idiotic as it might seem since he isn’t Anymore native than the next white old Gent still farming in town following His own father’s haul, but it does Generate a certain policy of who-is-who In the town. “How long you lived here?” Is like having the last word. The old man and his son have lived here, Right here, no more than a few feet either Way of birth-right, in this house and not Including the porch where I stand trading A few words with the old man — he tacked That on ten years ago. We have known One another twenty years and no matter Each time I see him we go into the same Routine of weather, seasonal news, how Far along we both are in getting up next Winter’s wood supply. He can be counted On to have his firewood (cut from bought logs) Bucked and split and stacked in a half Dozen rows thirty-two feet long fresh and Sturdy and incredibly pleasing to the eye. He does this all by himself with a wood splitter And grubby chain saw, while maul and wedge Are always close by for what won’t split. His son burns oil in a castle of a house And can’t make any sense of this wood Infatuation but he will tell you it gives Dad something to do, maybe keep him out Of the garage away from the customers Who walk away bewildered by the old man’s Statements. How in the world can one man Be so outright angry and do such complete Work in his garden and firewood detail? I can picture him right now moving between The stacks of firewood adjusting the ends Of each row not to spill apart, raking Bark and chips, liking every bit of the Feeling he must have knowing it is early May, far from winter, and here he is Ready for anything. A son of a bitch.
	SPECIFICS There was one stone I set into the hut That my neighbor Everett Belden, a farmer, always Remarked on liking specifically When word of stone walls Or such came up, “Now There’s that white rock You did that I like,” he’d Always say and I can’t Remember if I placed it In special or it just Came up in the pile that Way, but now Everett is long Gone and the hut is 10 years Built and so is the boy who I made it for and whenever The story comes up he learns A little more about Everett, Things gone by and the love For something done right
BABY ASLEEP Walk around Listening to My boots
	MOTHER & CHILD You lift him with a smile & he smiles back which lifts you
DUO The same bird every night In the same tree singing The same song that does The same very songful Thing inside of me
	LEAVING FOR WORK I could hold you All morning like this — Loose summer dress In my hands, brush of Sunburn on your shoulders, The feel of your waist, And a game of tip-toeing Who is taller, as we kiss And won’t let go
SHE COMES TO ME THIS WAY In her stocking feet and the Pleats of her skirt, the way The blouse is plain and opened At the sand of her throat and her Face is burned with winter and So happy, that it is only then I Notice something more — a Necklace of rawhide and soapstone Pebble, and even closer, the etch of Turquoise on the piece, which brings Me to her eyes…
BLACK BEAR Who carried the rain on his back Who we haven’t seen for a very long time Who knows this Who ran like me if I ran for my life Who crossed the wet dirt road without a track Who had me look over the same place twice Who mussed the deep pool river Who reminded me of nothing else Who crossed the road and hit a vertical bank Who vanished up that bank of trees and brush venetian Who isn’t easy to forget Who isn’t a riddle
TOUGH Leaf hangs To one beat-up Sawmill log
SUNSHINE in the garden along the rows on her long hair down her arms

---

copyright 1999 Bob Arnold

reprinted from Once in Vermont by Bob Arnold, Gnomon, 1999.

 

ONCE IN VERMONT. Gnomon, 1999. First edition. Mint copy. Bright pictorial stiff wraps with excellent spine and crisp text throughout. New. No cloth edition issued. ISBN 0-917788-74-5. 128 pages, limited: $13.50

Bob Arnold lives in the Green Mountains of Vermont where he has long made his living as a builder, stonemason, poet and bookseller. His many books of poetry and prose include Where Rivers Meet, Once in Vermont, On Stone, American Train Letters, Invent A World, Life's Little Day and Hiking Down From A Hillside Sky. Since 1971, with Susan Arnold he has edited books, anthologies and journals from Longhouse. His ongoing Woodburners series is available online.

Books for Sale by Bob Arnold

Copyright 2007 by Bob Arnold

Site design by two-hands

www.LonghousePoetry.com

[email protected]