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My grandmother said when she was young The grass was so wild and high You couldn’t see a man on horseback. In the fields she made out Three barns, Dark and blown down from the weather Like her husbands. She remembers them in the dark, Cursing the beasts, And how they would leave the bed In the morning, The dead grass of their eyes Stacked against her.

I was wondering why that guy wore the blanket coat, bone choker, rock watch, woven buckle, quilled Stetson— I was wondering why he wore that beaded vest, like a ledger drawing or a Winter Count, its skinny figure forever sneaking after two bison around belly to back, around back to belly— I was wondering why, when he said, I wear these getups every day— Every day, because these things are sacred, these things are prayer. Then I knew I could live this life If I had blue horses painted around and around me, shells and beads like rain in my ear praying Prairie open in me at stoplight, hard city, last call, bank line, coffee break, shopping cart, keycode, Prarie open in me Prarie open in me every day every day every day.

Droning a drowsy syncopated tune, Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon, I heard a Negro play. Down on Lenox Avenue the other night By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light He did a lazy sway. . . . He did a lazy sway. . . . To the tune o’ those Weary Blues. With his ebony hands on each ivory key He made that poor piano moan with melody. O Blues! Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool. Sweet Blues! Coming from a black man’s soul. O Blues! In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan— “Ain’t got nobody in all this world, Ain’t got nobody but ma self. I’s gwine to quit ma frownin’ And put ma troubles on the shelf.” Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor. He played a few chords then he sang some more— “I got the Weary Blues And I can’t be satisfied. Got the Weary Blues And can’t be satisfied— I ain’t happy no mo’ And I wish that I had died.” And far into the night he crooned that tune. The stars went out and so did the moon. The singer stopped playing and went to bed While the Weary Blues echoed through his head. He slept like a rock or a man that’s dead.

the weather is hot on the back of my watch which is down at Finkelstein’s who is gifted with 3 balls but no heart, but you’ve got to understand when the bull goes down on the whore, the heart is laid aside for something else, and let’s not over-rate the obvious decency for in a crap game you may be cutting down some wobbly king of 6 kids and a hemorrhoid butt on his last unemployment check, and who is to say the rose is greater than the thorn? not I, Henry, and when your love gets flabby knees and prefers flat shoes, maybe you should have stuck it into something else like an oil well or a herd of cows. I’m too old to argue, I’ve gone with the poem and been k.o.’d with the old sucker-punch round after round, but sometimes I like to think of the Kaiser or any other fool full of medals and nothing else, or the first time we read Dos or Eliot with his trousers rolled; the weather is hot on the back of my watch which is down at Finkelstein’s, but you know what they say: things are tough all over, and I remember once on the bum in Texas I watched a crow-blast, one hundred farmers with one hundred shotguns jerking off the sky with a giant penis of hate and the crows came down half-dead, half-living, and they clubbed them to death to save their shells but they ran out of shells before they ran out of crows and the crows came back and walked around the pellets and stuck out their tongues and mourned their dead and elected new leaders and then all at once flew home to fuck to fill the gap. you can only kill what shouldn’t be there. and Finkelstein should be there and my watch and maybe myself, and I realize that if the poems are bad they are supposed to be bad and if they are good they are likewise supposed to be—although there is a minor fight to be fought, but still I am sad because I was in this small town somewhere in the badlands, way off course, not even wanting to be there, two dollars in my wallet, and a farmer turned to me and asked me what time it was and I wouldn’t tell him, and later they gathered them up for burning as if they were no better than dung with feathers, feathers and a little gasoline, and from the bottom of one pile a not-quite-dead crow smiled at me. it was 4:35 p.m.

When it snows, he stands at the back door or wanders around the house to each window in turn and watches the weather like a lover. O farm boy, I waited years for you to look at me that way. Now we’re old enough to stop waiting for random looks or touches or words, so I find myself watching you watching the weather, and we wait together to discover whatever the sky might bring.

The weaver bird built in our house And laid its eggs on our only tree. We did not want to send it away. We watched the building of the nest And supervised the egg-laying. And the weaver returned in the guise of the owner. Preaching salvation to us that owned the house. They say it came from the west Where the storms at sea had felled the gulls And the fishers dried their nets by lantern light. Its sermon is the divination of ourselves And our new horizon limits at its nest. But we cannot join the prayers and answers of the communicants. We look for new homes every day, For new altars we strive to rebuild The old shrines defiled by the weaver's excrement.

I was the child that passed long hours away Chopping red beetroot in the hay-piled barn; Now must I spend the wind-blown April day Minding great looms and tying knots in yarn. Once long ago I tramped through rain and slush In brown waves breaking up the stubborn soil, I wove and wove the twilight’s purple hush To fold about the furrowed heart of toil. Strange fires and frosts burnt out the seasons’ dross, I watched slow Powers the woven cloth reveal, While God stood counting out His gain and loss, And Day and Night pushed on the heavy wheel. Held close against the breast of living Powers A little pulse, yet near the heart of strife, I followed the slow plough for hours and hours Minding through sun and shower the loom of life. The big winds, harsh and clear and strong and salt, Blew through my soul and all the world rang true, In all things born I knew no stain or fault, My heart was soft to every flower that grew. The cabbages in my small garden patch Were rooted in the earth’s heart; wings unseen Throbbed in the silence under the dark thatch, And brave birds sang long ere the boughs were green.

All day she stands before her loom; The flying shuttles come and go: By grassy fields, and trees in bloom, She sees the winding river flow: And fancy’s shuttle flieth wide, And faster than the waters glide. Is she entangled in her dreams, Like that fair-weaver of Shalott, Who left her mystic mirror’s gleams, To gaze on light Sir Lancelot? Her heart, a mirror sadly true, Brings gloomier visions into view. “I weave, and weave, the livelong day: The woof is strong, the warp is good: I weave, to be my mother’s stay; I weave, to win my daily food: But ever as I weave,” saith she, “The world of women haunteth me. “The river glides along, one thread In nature’s mesh, so beautiful! The stars are woven in; the red Of sunrise; and the rain-cloud dull. Each seems a separate wonder wrought; Each blends with some more wondrous thought. “So, at the loom of life, we weave Our separate shreds, that varying fall, Some strained, some fair: and, passing, leave To God the gathering up of all, In that full pattern wherein man Works blindly out the eternal plan. “In his vast work, for good or ill, The undone and the done he blends: With whatsoever woof we fill, To our weak hands His might He lends, And gives the threads beneath His eye The texture of eternity. “Wind on, by willow and by pine, Thou blue, untroubled Merrimack! Afar, by sunnier streams than thine, My sisters toil, with foreheads black; And water with their blood this root, Whereof we gather bounteous fruit. “There be sad women, sick and poor: And those who walk in garments soiled: Their shame, their sorrow, I endure; By their defect my hope is foiled: The blot they bear is on my name; Who sins, and I am not to blame? “And how much of your wrong is mine, Dark women slaving at the South? Of your stolen grapes I quaff the wine; The bread you starve for fills my mouth: The beam unwinds, but every thread With blood of strangled souls is red. “If this be so, we win and wear A Nessus-robe of poisoned cloth; Or weave them shrouds they may not wear,— Fathers and brothers falling both On ghastly, death-sown fields, that lie Beneath the tearless Southern sky. “Alas! the weft has lost its white. It grows a hideous tapestry, That pictures war’s abhorrent sight:— Unroll not, web of destiny! Be the dark volume left unread,— The tale untold,—the curse unsaid!” So up and down before her loom She paces on, and to and fro, Till sunset fills the dusty room, And makes the water redly glow, As if the Merrimack’s calm flood Were changed into a stream of blood. Too soon fulfilled, and all too true The words she murmured as she wrought: But, weary weaver, not to you Alone was war’s stern message brought: “Woman!” it knelled from heart to heart, “Thy sister’s keeper know thou art!”

Granite Weaving, 1988, by Jesús Moroles “He” grates across the throat, the “h” a dry abrasion on the tongue — Across the throat, the “h” in “she” is tucked behind the folded muscle. In “she” is tucked the “e” the lips unpurse to say, same as saying “we.” My lips unpurse to say the names of  God, of    Love, and they are “She.” The names of   God, of   Love are, too, old explosions coded into granite. Too, old explosions cooled to stone warm to the touch of  light, as she, Stone-warmed and glowing, let my lips brush velvet shadows onto hers. Let my lips brush the story soft, forget that “he” was scrape and struggle. The story soft forgets that “he” was heavy, wrestled into “we,” and weaving “He” heavy, wrestled (strands of  granite yarned like fabric) into “we,” Strands of granite halt their dry abrasion, interlock, and become “She.”

Sidewalks of webs and weeds Run parallel to empy lots where foul deeds By handkerchief heads and winos were played, To that old house where we stayed. Irma Jean, Cora Jean and I, three debs, Against the cracks of weeds and webs. Sitting through matinees, dodging chores, Chewing gum; claiming boys were bores. But secretly grooming hair and breasts; Jennie’s brood, a female nest. Irma, long-legged, delicious full lips, Taught Cora and me to wiggle our hips. George Darlington Love, a beau, my first; They yelled his name like a tribal curse As his virginal fingers pressed our bell. Against that background of sights and smells, We ignored switchblades, zip guns, and knees Shattered by cops in that place without trees. Now memories of dances are sprinkled like seeds Among cousins and sidewalks of webs and weeds.