Corydon & Alexis
By D. A. Powell
shepherdboy? not the most salient image for contemporary readers
nor most available. unless you’re thinking brokeback mountain:
a reference already escaping. I did love a montana man, though no
good shepherd
rather: a caveman, came spelunking into that grotto I’d retreated to
what light he bore illumined such small space—physically, temporally
and did he have a grove of beech trees? no, no grove
but together we found an old-growth stand of redwood
we gouged each other’s chests instead of wood: pledges that faded
he was not cruel nor I unwitting. but what endures beyond any
thicket?
example: he took me to the ocean to say farewell. I mean me: farewell
to ocean
the ocean, for that matter, to me. us both fatigued, showing signs
of wreckage
and that man I had loved stood back from the edge of things
he did not hold me
I expected not to be held
we all understood one another: shepherd understudy, ocean, me
and did he go back to his fields and caves? yes, but they were gone
strip-mining, lumber, defoliant, sterile streams: you knew that was
coming
weren’t we taught some starched sermon: the pasture awaits us
elsewhere
back up a moment: the forest you mentioned—remember, instead of a grove?
untouched for the most part. some human damage, but not ours
we left no mark, not there in the midst of those great trees:
not in the concentric rings that might have held us far past living
instead, I put that man, like so many others, on paper—
a tree already gone from sight where once it had drawn the eyes
upward: the crest of a mountain. crumpled thoughts, crumpled love
shepherdboy, do you see the wild fennel bulbs I gathered for you
olallieberries, new-mown grass, the tender fruits of the coastal fig?
I put them on paper, too, so fragile. for nothing is ever going to last
For Haines Eason
“corydon & alexis” first appeared in Poetry Magazine. Reprinted with the permission of the author.
Source:
Poetry Magazine
(Poetry Foundation, 2006)
