Discovered
I'm
carving my initials on a tree
with
a pocketknife my father gave me
yesterday.
My first tool. My first weapon.
I'm
leaving a hint of who I am here
by
force. I'm not killing the tree but what
was
that cry I just heard? Probably just
a
bird but it's a new one on me. Crow?
Pigeon?
No and no. GA--that's me, or
part.
I know who I am but if someone
comes
through these woods and doesn't know me then
he
won't know I cut these clues. But he'll know
why,
I suspect, and that's enough: as if
I've
put my mark on Nature--my copy
-right.
Yes (mean my initials), I own all
you
survey. Not just this one tree but all
its
brothers and, by extension, the earth
and
sky, bushes and briars and flowers,
birds
and squirrels and stray cats and dogs and
whatever
other creatures wander through,
including
the character who pauses
here
and finds the owner of this forest.
Not
that he would know where to look. Chances
are
he won't stop here at all but at some
strange
tree. If I'm discovered it will be
by
accident. And I'm not even sure
if
I can find this place again myself.
It
will be like stumbling on a second
finding.
I may wander through here for years
and
never see me again, especially
if
it's me I'm seeking. Then, in ten years,
say,
I'm back in the territory and
I
stop to wipe my brow or take a piss
and
I look up and there I am, even
taller
than I stand. Well (I'll say), I'll be
damned.
There it is. There I am. After all
this
time. I'll
reach to touch the old scars and
recall
the pocketknife lost long ago,
perhaps
in these very woods. I don't know.
If
it's here it's rusted to Hell by now,
going
back to what it was before mined
and
forged and alloyed and packaged and sold
to
my father and then passed on to me.
That's
me, too, lying in the loam somewhere
beneath
the trees. I shouldn't be careless
and
wouldn't want to lose me for life.
Or
suppose someone finds it before me,
picks
it up and takes it home and cleans it
and
slides it into his pocket, finders
keepers?
There's something left of me on edge
and
I'll bet that it will never wear off
no
matter how much it's used. My tool. My
weapon.
My birth and my death and a name.
Gale Acuff has had hundreds of poems published in eleven countries and is the author of three books of poetry. He has taught university English in the US, China, and Palestine.
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