It's Time

                        It’s Time

Or say once more it’s time to write.

You can’t look away forever.  

Morning takes so long.  You think

of the song that waits, the line

you started but left for later.

The book you are reading

for the third time takes long

enough to be a new adventure. 

The people are the same,

but meanwhile you changed.

It’s beginning to winter.  Yesterday’s

rain is white on the ground. 

The sky clears. You wake and

remember you are old, the tune

in your mind starting to fade.

                              

                                                          —Donnell Hunter

                                                             26 November 2012

Practice

                    

                        Practice

I practice widowerhood

since you’ve been gone to nurse

your sister for a week.  

Some days are long.  I make

the bed with only my wrinkles

to smooth out and leave your

pillow undisturbed in place

to help recall our last embrace.

                               —Donnell Hunter         

                                               29 October 2021

The Fall

                  

      The Fall

Once more I face the Fall.  Its leaves hold on

one brief moment, then let go.  I sweep

them up and till them into garden soil. 

Rain and snow can come now, though I hope

they allow a few more days of Indian

summer to enjoy these color splotches

fading chloroplasts expose to view.  

Frost and the gathering dark hover

over our lives, one year closer to winter’s

teeth, to the cold earth that waits us all.

                                        —Donnell Hunter

                                                    20 October 2012

The East Margin

         The East Margin

Whenever my lines find the real east

margin, always a word like an icon

bounces back into the middle of my poem.

North, west, south, the sun rises, sets, or floats

in a slow flat line.  An osprey dives, locks

talons on a trout too heavy to lift,

and drowns, a victim of greed and lust. 

The South Fork, her runoff held in check

by a dam, flows her implacable way

to the sea.  I’ll settle for that.  But once

on the bank of the Clark Fork thirty years

back a poem burst past the east margin

and found its way through the kingdom

of dark to the very heart of the sun. 

—Donnell Hunter

                                                 28 September 2011

Newborn

            Newborn

                                                for Donita

With eyes that can’t yet focus

you look around the room with wonder,

at faces draped in linen and hear sounds

unlike the muffled heart you grew up

under.  You hear voices you can’t

articulate, nor differentiate tones

of joy from those that signal danger

in this new world where everything

is strange and you the newest stranger.

                                    —Donnell Hunter

                                                 18 September 2011

September Song

September Song      

Somewhere between the man I’ve become

and the poet I have not, my life moves on.

Where my self is is another question.

Maybe out back in the yard too wild to tame

with my one good arm.  Or in cottonwood shadows

flung across the lawn I have yet to mow.  Yes, winter

is on its way.  We cover tomatoes and hope

Indian summer will let green ripen into red

and allow the last two ears of corn to find

our table before raccoons finish off the patch.

Both our streams are man made.  They run from May 15

until October when the water-master turns

them off and fish gape in pools left behind.  My neighbor

tries to catch them on his one day off.  I retired

and no longer fret about things like that.  A friend

ten years younger than I would like to leave this world

and join his wife, but can’t seem to find the right

path out.  All our older friends are gone. 

The poets who taught me how to make these lines

passed on where rivers run west, not north like those

in their poems.  They took sea lanes out or hid beneath

the ice when I asked about the farm.  Telephone lines

gave way to wireless.  The birds who listened to their rhymes

flew south except for mottled finches in full molt

who wait for tails to grow back in to guide them home.

                                                —Donnell Hunter

                                                               14 September 2012

Red Sky at Morning

            Red Sky at Morning

                                                                                    For Larry

The sun turns crimson in the August sky.

Next door the young cock crows to welcome dawn,

and I discover death has passed me by.

I rise to greet the day before me.  Why

am I still here when all my friends are gone?

The sun turns crimson in the August sky.

My mirror shows three new wrinkles when I try

to smooth my aging flesh, now weak and wan,

but death, still merciful, has passed me by.

Young Margaret dries her tears without a sigh.

The golden grove lies leafmeal on the lawn.

The sun turns crimson in the August sky.

My neighbor bales his hay.  The stacks grow high,

the harvest great, the doe still leads her fawn

across the meadow.  Death has passed me by.

Days are a blur.  Weeks, months, and now years fly

with quickened pace, so much of memory flown.

The sun turns crimson in the August sky,

while I lament that death has passed me by.

                                    —Donnell  Hunter

                                                14 August 2012

Decades

Decades

At ten I walked my dog

to the far end of the farm

where a white rabbit

was just turning brown.

At twenty I taught in a far

land.  So many new words

I kept trying to learn.

At thirty I graduated

from graduate school,

certified to teach words

on my own.

At forty I wanted my song

to be like the Cañon Wren:

joyful cascades flowing down.  

It would take a long time

to learn what I needed to learn.

At fifty I looked through

snow where a blackbird

sat in the cedar limbs. 

At sixty my life as a teacher

wound down—most of our

children already flown.

I turned seventy in Guatemala.

When the fog lifted, Nita and I

found the Quetzal bird together.

At eighty I revise my life—

new garden, new songs, new

branches cascade over the wall.

                    —Donnell Hunter

                            29 may 2012

Alchemy

Alchemy

We are of the earth, earthy,

“dust to dust,” etc.  Our bodies

wait out the storm until

dust to dust we return.

Five rivers found their way

from Eden.  They are flowing still,

even though Eden has long since

fled from Zion's hill.

When the last comet arrives

too close for comfort, some soul

will take a deep breath:  

“All’s well that ends . . .” etc.

By fire or ice?  “Who cares?”

says Frost, “Either will suffice.”

                    —Donnell Hunter

                            6 June 2012     

The Garden

The Garden

After the rain lettuce says

thank you and grows another

quarter inch before dark.

Radishes move the dirt

a hair, expand crisp roots

ready for picking next day.

Weeds run riot.  They think

this land is theirs to do

whatever they want, and they

are right for three days,

until the gardener’s fingers

find them out:  “Sorry,

not this time, not this row. 

Farewell, I hope, until next year.”

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                        28 May 2012

Turbulence

Turbulence

This morning everything in the room

is spinning so much I don’t know

where to walk.  On the walls?

Or the ceiling?  Can I even trust

that old friend, the floor,

with my head so reeling?

What about Spring, that thief

who came in the night and put

each leaf on the right tree, the lawn

ready for mowing?  My garden

I have yet to plant.  Will a serpent

lie in wait while I am sowing?

I hesitate, while the room spins this morning,

even though the sun promises to return

one minute sooner than yesterday

to warm my furrows for seeds to germinate

and roots take hold despite the gloom

of frost in the forecast warning.

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                        26 May 2012

Lineage

                  Lineage

With her back to the wind of a Minnesota prairie 

she gave birth to her firstborn and named him White Wolf. 

White for the blanket of snow that surrounded them, Wolf

for the wail that pierced the night when he took his first breath.

His mother’s body gave him warmth, her breast nourishment 

for health, and from that bleakness White Wolf became the man 

everyone forgot until a great-great-grandson traced

his lineage to White Wolf’s father—Back-to-the-Wind.

Today, in our Father’s Holy Temple we seal the three

of them that they may live together joyfully again.

                    —Donnell Hunter

                            25 May 2012

                                     

Accident

On this day in 1929, my parents William Wallace Hunter and Bertha O'Donnell were married in the Logan Temple.

This poem is in memoriam.

Accident

Father almost died when I was five,

but waited six more years before he told

my mother “I’m not sure how much longer

I can last.”  Poor health saved him from the war,

and from there on he was glad one day

at a time until he retired at sixty-three.

Anywhere they went they went together:

shopping, for a drive to see the children

and grandchildren or visit Yellowstone.

He was driving on their way back and stopped

to see my daughter at the restaurant

in Jackson where she worked.  They left a tip

right after I called to tell her everything

was right at home.  “Grandma and Grandpa

are here, do you want to talk to them?” 

“No, I’ll see them tomorrow.”

Maybe that conversation would have saved

their lives. It could have delayed their departure

long enough so the man driving drunk

who hit them head on would have missed the curve

and smashed into a tree before they arrived

to see the wreckage and report an accident

from the next place to phone. 

As it was someone else made the call.

In the morning our bishop arrived to tell

us news I had waited for all my life

but didn’t realize at forty-one

my life was not yet half done when I learned

that they were gone.

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                       1 May 2012

April Snowfall

I am going to continue using the same blog address, but not commit myself to entering a new post every day, just enter those poems that feel right without pressure.  

Thus, Part Two.

April Snowfall

It takes a late April snowfall

to remind us we are still

in Idaho and not Guatemala

or on the island of Bali, leaning

back in a lawn chair to watch

a lady in her conical hat glean

debris at the edge of the grass

and a man balancing a pole

over his shoulders with two bags

of detritus gathered from the sea.

Yes it takes late April snow

to remind us we don’t even live

on a prairie where Emily says

all you need is a clover, one bee,

and misspelled revery.  

By afternoon snow will be gone.

Bees in the pear tree will resume

their annual pilgrimage of pollination. 

Wind will be sufficient to confirm

we are still in Idaho long after the bees

are silent and Spring turns to June. 

The man with two bags will fade

into reverie spelled right,

as I bend my own back

to rake detritus cottonwoods

bestrew across the lawn.

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                        27 April 2012

The Lure

This the 110th anniversary of my father's (William Wallace Hunter) birth.  He was a lonely sheepherder poet who married my mother (Bertha O'Donnell) in 1929.  I am their first child.  Both were killed in a car accident in 1971.

So I have chosen this day to end this blog with my 100th post.  I have posted every day since I began it except for Sundays.

I feel this is the best poem I have ever written, and thirty years of writing and publishing since then have produced nothing better.

I plan to begin another blog, but without deadlines.  When it is ready I will make a notice of its title on another post here.

                    The Lure

The thread of my life is waxed,

ready to be wrapped on a hook, decorated

with fur and feathers, then flung in a pond.

The fish below—shiners, bluegills, pout—

will watch me floating, dangling helpless.

They will laugh themselves dizzy asking

what fisherman could be sucker enough

to fall for anything phony as that.

They will take turns swirling up through clear

water, at the last moment turn tail

and veer away.  The man on the wrong end

of the line will see the ripple and twitch

back his pole.  He will curse anxiety and luck,

make another cast.  The fish will laugh again,

releasing bubbles of mirth.

                             This will go on

afternoon after afternoon.  The sun will beat down

on the fisherman.  He will keep casting and missing,

missing and cursing, cursing and—you may wonder

why doesn't he reach down into his tackle box

and try another lure?  But the fish are right:

anyone who would cast me out will never come

up with the idea change is in order.

One day the pond will produce the fish who can match

wits with the fisherman:  a long pike or heavy trout.

The others will scatter in panic, leaving him

to swim alone, under my shadow.  Reflex will turn him,

slowly ascending, opening the dark cave

his jaws make when he holds his breath, gills slack

tongue flat on the floor.  He will feel the hook

tear flesh.  His bones will tighten.

The reel will sing to the fisherman whose hands

will remember what to do.  I will fall

in love with my captor.  His pain will be mine

because he is the only one who ever wanted me.

Together we will rise just as the sun

drops into the kingdom of darkness

where stars refuse to shine.

                                    —Donnell Hunter

Sunstone  June 1986

The Frog in our Basement 1984

Harvest 1989

Mitsubishi

Mitsubishi

I dream of the road of life, wide at first

and one way.  What happened to happy

hour after the sun went down? 

My son asks, “Shouldn’t we wait to watch

the news?  This could be the start of World

War III.”  I’ve watched the news

for fifty years and not even seen the

end of World War II.

The white Mitsubishi we follow

slows up. Why is he doing this?  

There are no traffic lights, no side roads

that lead away from the road of life.  

One by one the shops close down.  My hearing

aids pick up sounds I’ve never heard before:  

water falling, clicking spoons, the tick

of the mantle clock I forgot to wind. 

Time to wake.  This dream is about to end. 

It’s a long drive to Dallas by way

of Abilene or other routes unknown,

no intersections, no Mitsubishi

to lead the way.  I keep my eye

on the center line and try to ignore

north bound traffic going too fast

the wrong way home.

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                        19 April 2012  

The Waiting Game

The Waiting Game

At dusk minnows slap

at your bait below the dam.

The fly you tied so carefully

floats ignored by the trout.

Their interest in minnows

is more than nostalgia,

but it’s been a long day,

their bellies full already.

They play the waiting game.

Tomorrow the sun will

likely shine, and the boots

of the fisherman be gone.

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                        18 April 2012 

Cezanne

Cezanne

When someone stole Cezanne’s

painting of a boy in a red jacket,

I wondered which one.

Cezanne was too honest.

He wasn't above trying the same

thing twice.  So many mornings

he spent ten minutes looking

at Mont Sainte Victoire, reducing

it time after time to just three shapes

while the light was right.

Then he moved to another easel

set up the day before to try

a different point of view.

Did it matter to him that he

was founding a new form of art? 

Or did he just focus on what

he saw and paint, even though

what he did never would for him

nor for those who scoffed

look exactly right.

                    —Donnell Hunter

                           17 April 2012   

Wisely and Slow

Wisely and Slow

Even at eighty some days follow

a routine. What was once a rut, a grind,

provides opportunity to reminisce

when it was easy to sit down or get up

without weighing in each alternative.

What once I decided by whim gets

thorough rumination.  I weigh

the benefits, calculate the costs,

consider urgencies, try to side-step

all emergencies.  “Wisely and slow,”

Friar Lawrence cautions his young friend,

“They stumble who run fast.” 

At eighty-one, if not wiser, but

for sure much slower, running is never

urgent when it take ten minutes first

to decide whether to sit or stand.

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                        16 April 2012

By the Numbers

By the Numbers

After 4 girls my grandson

finally fathered a boy.

How’s that for a trial of faith?

His sister has 5 sons

as well as 3 daughters

who squeezed in between.

And our family has grown

year by year until we are a clan

of 75 plus 22 spouses and 3 exes

to reach the century mark

in this 21^st century since

the Lord came humbly in a manger

and died 33 years later then rose

after 3 days with the promise

of everlasting life for all

of us that Easter morn.

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                        14 April 2012