Covenant

Covenant

                      

                       I made a covenant with mine eyes.

                                      Job 31:1

We train our bodies to go through the motions

in the fond hope when time ends, they will not

have to learn everything all over again.

We learn silence, the lost art of the Incas,

who hid their gold so deep Pizarro couldn’t

find enough to fill the room.

His children keep looking.  When they give up,

the ghosts of the old world emerge from pillars

of salt.  Ghosts of the jungle join in chorus.  

Tinamous and owls find their way by the sense

of touch and wait for the dawn.  Birds quiet down,

something no one thought possible.

At last, light comes, so sudden everyone sees.

Some hide in shadows.  Others find caves.  But we

of the covenant step forth when we hear our name.

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                        31 March 2012

Deprivation

Deprivation

If I grew up an autistic child

no one told me.  My parents were too poor

to ask, and who could diagnose it

if they had?  So I grew up normal

despite the times I liked to be alone. 

If one of my fifty-four friends turned out

to be the poster child it wasn’t known.

We had no little leagues, designer cribs,

soccer teams, nor video games.  Any time

away from chores or homework, we filled

with playtime on our own.  No cell phones,

Face Book, I-pods—how did we survive? 

No one feared Alzheimer’s then.  They just plain

forgot and went on living till the end.

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                        30 March 2012

Late March

Late March

Light waits at the edge of the sea

or on the other side of the mountain

where snow melts, ready to burst forth

with that first ray and fill the sky with blue

and the soul with hope and joy.  Dark dreams

fade as the seed we plant in our hearts swells

and we know night forever will be gone.

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                        29 March 2012

Weather Report

Weather Report

We could use rain, although the sun makes us

feel warm.  Noah thought that after forty

years building the ark on a mountain where

gopher wood was plentiful and neighbors

laughed him to scorn.  One hundred twenty years

he preached with no success except three sons—

not much help to build an ark three hundred

cubits long.  When it was finished and the rains

came, well, you know the rest of the story. 

It’s that way every spring.  The sun feels warm,

but we can always use a little rain.

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                        28 March 2012

                                      

My Father's Voice

My Father’s Voice

Sometimes it’s my father’s voice I hear

in my own, and the dream I dream

may have been his before I was born.

His father I never knew and so on

back through all the years that have ever

been.  The hand I raise to pull the bow

is my left hand.  My mother taught me that,

although some teacher made her change the pen

to her right hand once she went to school.

Now that I’ve lived half my life without them,

some mornings I wake and see the photo

on the wall of their last forty years together.

My father looks straight at me, my mother aside,

because, she said, she’d cry because of pride.

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                        27 March 2012

Gatherer

The Gatherer

Each morning he cleans

the beach at Bali, his pole

across his shoulders,

so tourists like me 

can enjoy the view and tell

friends back home to come

to Bali, the land

the Lord has not forgotten

nor the sea that sends

new gifts each morning

for us to glean.

                    —Donnell Hunter

                            26 March 2012                                    

Roll Call

Roll Call

End of the week, time to take roll.

“Here.” I answer, raising my hand,

not quite as high as last time

but my arm still to the square. 

Bill is gone, and Dick, who died

in the eighties with only one lung.  

Others wander off and don’t return.  

Gene, you are still on the list.

You died far away in a foreign land  

and left a wife I never met.

Your children are somewhere

back east, or perhaps out west.  

All families scatter.  We take roll

and listen for the voice that says

“Here, I am.” 

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                       24 March 2012

Continuance

Continuance

Early morning I adjust my hearing aids. 

The clock ticks louder, winding down.

Once a week I wind it up to boost the chimes

that mark another quarter hour as history,

while the story of my life moves on.

Yesterday a friend called.  His voice was far.

We talked like everything was still the same.

After we hung up, I stepped outside to loose

the oak from the rod I used four years ago

to prop it straight:  “You’re on your own.”

Cottonwoods echoed my voice, no wind. 

The sun went down.  My son stopped by

to announce the birth of his ninth grandson.

Together we took down the flag, folded it

into a neat triangle—thirteen folds,

one for each colony, no red exposed.

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                        23 March 2012

Undergrowth

Undergrowth

My mother and father are somewhere

in the undergrowth that hasn’t been

pruned since I was ten.  I sharpen

the lopping shears.  Where to begin?

On the left a path opens but tangles—

limbs so big they need a chainsaw. 

On the right vines twist too tight

to pull apart.  Not all memories fade.  

Some rest on the far side of the moon.  

Those that remain rise in my dreams—

new growth piercing the dark

to light and joy where there is no pain.

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                        22 March 2012

The Second Day

The Second Day

Well, it’s here, this Spring

we held out for.  The mountain turns

her shadow one inch north. 

We can’t see it, of course,

but our bones feel the tilt

of gravity and try to save

one more hour of sun.  Time

is indifferent to the tides of men.  

This man’s neap is that man’s full.   

On the far side of the world

a fisherman wades in, spear

in hand.  He flings the bait,

once more not taken, but hope

holds on.  In his bones he feels

the tilt of gravity, packs up

the hour he saved and his fishing gear.  

He will try again tomorrow,

the second day of Spring.

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                        21 March 2012

Spring

Spring

If nowhere else,

     at least on the calendar

            it’s spring.

And in the heart

     bluebirds are ready

  to change mountains.

The mountain that

            waits their arrival

                        has made a deal

with the sun:   Wait here

            awhile.   He is coming

                        with great iridescence,

and the earth

          already listens

              for his song.

—Donnell Hunter

     20 March 2012

The Tree

         The Tree

I turn my face to the sun.  An oak,

or perhaps a pomegranate, springs up after

the rain.  The wind dies down to a whisper. 

Footfalls fade.  All shadows are gone.

Was this the first tree, someone asks,

or the last?  What does it matter?

I am here.  I am here. 

—Donnell Hunter

       19 March 2012

This Place

          This Place

It’s enough to make you wonder,

this place, who the ghosts are, and why.

You ask the river that won’t shut down,

even when you turn away.  “I tried,” you tell

the  gateman, “I tried to understand.”  

But no one listens except rocks

who vowed silence long ago, no matter

how often earth shifts or trees grow up

through crevices to wave at passersby.

One could be me.  I come whenever I pass

this way to keep my promise when I was young. 

We walked in the river, my father and I. 

The sun beat down.  The fish weren’t biting. 

“I told you to wear a hat, but you forgot.”

 I looked up.  “Here,” he said, “take mine.”

                        —Donnell Hunter

                          17 March 2012

My Friend

My Friend

When he called and said, “This is your friend,

Jeffrey R, ” I looked through the window

at first light breaking the Andes sky,

at long shadows fleeing west.  I was one

of the flock who had not strayed, though

sometimes the darkness was deep.  This morning,

as I listen again to his voice,  “Don’t look

back,” I see through the window a glimmer

of pink beneath the overcast.  “Red sky,

take warning.”  Perhaps, but full of hope

and love to brighten another new day.

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                       16 March 2012  

Evolution

Evolution

Today I read about dinosaurs

and about the earliest ancestor

of the Internet in 1969.

Sixteen years later

there were six .com’s.

By 2010 that number had grown

to 84 million around the world.

During that time Jack Horner,

flunked out of school and stuck

his paleontolic thumb into Montana

fossilized mud pies.  The plum

he pulled out reversed the thinking

of the scientific world regarding dinosaurs.

No longer reptiles with cold blood

they are parents of the hummingbird.

As for the Internet I turn on

each day before breakfast to read

the news, how long will it be

before paper becomes obsolete

and environmentalists no longer

scream, “Woodsmen spare

that tree” nor obstructionists

drive nails into fir trunks to thwart

chain saws and save our modern

dinosaur, the spotted owl?

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                        15 March 2012

Light

 Light

I do not love you less … now

. . . .
that all that light once gave
The graduate dark should now revoke.

    —Bearded Oaks,” Robert Penn Warren

On this day in 1879

Albert Einstein was born at the speed

of light.  “Light. he said, “ is the only

constant in the world, and everything

else is relative.”  The world said “O. K.,

that sounds reasonable.”

In 1832 the Lord offered

an olive leaf to those who would receive

the light, “the law by which all

things are governed.”  But the world

said no, and killed the Prophet

who told them so.

Just like when Jesus came:   “I am

the light and the life of the world.”

But the world preferred its own dark,

where even though light shines,

the darkness chooses not to comprehend.

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                                      14 March 2012

Make Do with What You Have

Make Do with What You Have

The crow looks rusty as he rises up.
Bright is the malice in his eye . . .

One joins him there for company,
But at a distance, in another tree.

                             

—from “No Possum, No Sop, No Taters,”

                                 Wallace Stevens     

The crow keeps his distance here

this morning of early Spring. 

We have no possums this far north.

The taters we store want to sprout.

As for rust, our nails are galvanized.

Most of my malice I direct to squirrels

who raid bird feeders despite corn cobs

I offer and ingenious devices designed

to keep them at bay.  Winter gasps

its last breath.  The first deciduous leaf

has yet to appear, but somewhere

beneath departing snow a crocus waits. 

I seek its blessing that for me

heralds the real new year.

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                       13 March 2012

Discovery

Discovery

When Aristotle ran out of names,

he used the word for soul to

call the butterfly.  By the time

I was a Boy Scout everything

had its name written somewhere

in a book.  All you had to do

was look it up.  I began with birds,

then later Lepidoptera.  There was

no end to new things for me,

but all of them had first been

seen by someone else.

Like Dylan Thomas I was young

and happy beside the dry canal

that crossed our farm when I saw

a bird no book had yet shown me. 

Could this be mine to name?

I made notes carefully: wing bars,

striped pale breast, teeters as it walks,

white line through eye.  I had

no field guide of my own,

so had to borrow the Library’s

at school to look for what I’d seen.

Near the end, there it was:

American Pipit, Anthus rubescens,

to be exact.  But did it matter?

It was still a new discovery for me.

Next morning in the dry canal

I saw a piece of bark unfold its wings,

my first Mourning Cloak butterfly.

Who cares if Aristotle had seen

it first?  My soul leapt at the sight

as I watched this delicate Lepidoptera

flit to the next dead tree.

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                        12 March 2012

The Bucket List

The Bucket List

The nuts and bolts in my bucket

list are starting to rust.  It’s time

to tidy up and be more practical

than I was at twenty-nine.

The double barreled over and under

shotgun I never bought and the Grand

Teton I planned to climb are,

like me, expendable and can go,

as well as the telescope I wanted

to set up in the backyard in case

there were new stars to find.

This morning I read where a group

of hikers climbed Idaho’s highest

peak, Mount Borah, and checked

it off their bucket list.  I will erase

Mount Everest and any other

mountain higher than my head,

save them for another life or time.

So what remains on my short list

for the short while after eighty

I have left?  A diet?  No, my flesh

and trousers seem to be loosening

on their own.  A trip around

the world?  Magellan tried that

once but got buried halfway

out and never made it home.  

After the podiatrist took my toenails

some suggested for safety sake

I should wear steel-toed boots.

Last night stubbing my way

to the bathroom through the dark

I thought that might be not be

a bad idea to put in a bucket list,

just in case I have to kick mine.

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                        10 March 2012

The Voice

The Voice

In the midst of dark

they heard the voice of Jesus

Christ throughout the land:

How oft have I tried

to gather you in my arms

but you would not come.

Oh you that are spared

will you not now repent and

turn to me again?

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                        9 March 2012

Biopsy

Biopsy

When he heard the grim report

a scripture came to mind: “Whatsoever 

ye sow that shall ye also reap.”  

But another aphorism seemed more

appropriate:  “Who lives by the sword 

shall perish by the sword.”  He put that

in its sheath, ate breakfast, like always,

and remembered Crazy Horse: 

“It’s a beautiful day to die.”

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                        8 March 2012

Two Wrongs

Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Right

Mr. Wright, our Principal, was a man

of sound principles.  “There are four ways

to spell this sound,” he said, “write them down.” 

We got out our notebooks, listened close.

He began with his name.  “Got that right?” 

Then the rite we held at school each morning

when we raised the flag and with right hands

over our hearts pledged allegiance.  His wife,

who looked for Mr. Right, found him instead. 

They married in a Temple rite.  One day

he taught us Billy Budd, who stands up

in the boat, and says “Farewell, Rights of Man.”

He taught us many things we learned by rote.

and in our notebooks wrote them down.

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                        7 March 2012                          

psalm of life

The Psalm of Life

When I read the “Psalm of Life,” I thought

of David, of the stars, and the lion

he slew, in training to meet Goliath,

no longer just the youngest of eight sons,

but an anointed king.  Too young for such

responsibility?  Perhaps herding

sheep does not teach you kingly things.  Or was

it something else that turned his psalms from joy

to rue when Nathan said, “Thou art the man”?

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                       6 March 2012

Rock Canyon, 1989

Rock Canyon, 1989

                   

Thou hast put gladness in my heart.

                                            —Psalms  4:7

When I tried to speak, I sang.

When I started to sing, wind

was my friend.  My song reached

the walls of Rock Canyon

and came back, an echo

of gladness in my heart.

The sky opened—no clouds,

no rain, no end in sight.

Twenty years have passed.

I haven’t gone back to Rock Canyon,

but the echo, however faint,

and the gladness still remain.

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                        5 March 2012  

So Much for Osmosis

So Much for Osmosis

When I ask myself what am I

doing here, I can’t remember.

When she asks what am I thinking,

her voice interrupts my chain

of thought.  Too many thoughts,

too many choices to trace through

ghostly demarcations at Key West

if only I’d gone there.

She could have asked why didn’t I

take the scenic route to Missoula

through Phillipsburg and the girl

with red hair, but I had decided

it was safest to stay on the bus

once we left Humphrey, Idaho

where Aaron Copeland never

went to school. 

At Dubois the driver woke us  

for breakfast at 5 a. m.  He said

there were no other good

restaurants within a hundred miles.

It was obvious he was sweet

on the waitress.  We stayed too

long.  The restrooms ran out

of paper, and our tips were small.

I thought then I could become

a poet.  I thought by some

osmotic process and a degree

I would know what to say.

But it’s been thirty years.  Osmosis

has been reversed.  The words

I hoped would of themselves

take fire have all slipped away.

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                        3 March 2012