No Gathering In of this Incense
Poems
Mark Rhoads
Acknowledgments
“Short Block,” “Singing Dylan,” and “Fishing” first appeared in The Christian Science Monitor.
“Our Old Chevy,” “Plantain,” and “The Occasional Fire” were first published in The Deronda Review.
“Telecom’s Bequest,” “Vital Meaning,” “Legacy,” and “Action Still” first appeared in Contemporary Rhyme.
“Main Street” first appeared in Ballard Street Poetry Journal.
No Gathering In of this Incense
Poems
Copyright © 2015 Mark Rhoads. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions. Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
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Part One: Iconic Virtue
Daily I search those eyes, the windows
through which I see their future, my past, all at once.
Our Old Chevy Had No Radio
Our old Chevy had no radio,
no conditioned air, no seatbelts
to tie you down; so I would spread my arms
to rise out over the treeless hills,
top the pungent sage and rippling wheat,
then swoop back over the rocketing hood,
glance back into the divided glass
to see my determined mother,
my father commanding the wheel,
hell-bent for Ritzville.
My music in those generous days
was the drone of the straight six below me
the flutter of hot wind in my boyish ears,
a clattering escort of grasshoppers,
a meadowlark singing out a claim
to a fencepost.
The Seed of Me
My father sits on the edge of his bed in a t-shirt
angling a blue-veined foot into a leg of his pajamas.
His loins are exposed, the loins
from which the seed of me burst out
on a pleasant April night in Canyon Crest,
and afterwards he swung these feet
to the floor to sit for a moment, palms
on the mattress, his toes kneading
the cool linoleum, then looked back at my mother
to exchange a commemorative smile.
But now these pajamas claim his full attention,
one leg, then the other leg, a forced rest;
and once over his knees he labors to stand
to pull them up over his wilted buttocks;
he falls to the bed, lays his head in dry fingers,
looks down at the floor for a long, long time
as if to ponder the history of the old brown carpet.
Iconic Virtue
The way my father grips those two dead squirrels
by their tails and how his left hand extends
to the barrel-end of a rifle, butt at his feet; and those
dungarees and the work shirt he is wearing, the way
he has rolled up his sleeves; and my mother,
how she stands next to my father in tailored slacks
and a waste-length sweater; and the way that squirrel
hangs from her left hand, held by her thumb
and first two fingers; even how she tucks her thumb
in under the fingers of her right hand
as it hangs at her side; and how young they look,
clowning around in front of this old cabin;
and how they both smile, draws me as the icon
of a saint draws the devout to consider the origins
of a virtue. Daily I search those eyes, the windows
through which I see their future, my past, all at once.
Snow
sifts through a ghostly stand
of tamarack and tall pine
that borders the forest road
and hovers over the bridge
spanning the creek
and there is no breeze
or breath but mine
all silence except for
the tiny change of pressure
as flakes pass my ear
or the slight sizzle as they touch
down on my head and shoulder
or the more distant sound
as subtle as dust accumulating
on the mantle piece
of snow gathering on limb and leaf
and even my steps are muted
by the years that have passed
and muted also is the reason
I am walking here
but the memory ephemeral
as the fragile snow feathery
as the tamarack leaf peculiar
in its persistence
flickers and fades
flickers and fades
then passes as an old photo
passes in an album
I Would Step into the Wooden Boat
I would step into the wooden boat
pull up the near shore of the Pend Oreille
along the marshes with the white stumps
of