A Practical Justice

For Arthur Henry Schultz, 1898-1961

He poles a stem of rye before his face
wide as the number one, true as it is.
“But son, have I ever turned you from your place?"
“I am I, not we,” the younger says.
The dove depends its wings upon its breast
then bends its head, as if to think on this
then falls upon the door-sill, dead.
Whose fault was this?
The statement, or the question weighed amiss?
A word is a want with decoration;
a nod is a sword, unclassified;
without a sound a dove has died.
The younger turns as though to turn the world;
the elder lays a hand upon his chest.
“It was I who made you bone and blood.
Don’t forget. I fed you of the best;
Were you in need, my interest stayed;
if you would call, I left my place;
My day began when your sun fell,
my night was by your day erased.
Whose is this ground beneath your feet?
Whose harvest shod you, set you walking straight?
And now you tell me – tell me to my face –
to work with me is your disgrace?"
~
Guilt is an arrow will only pierce the good
while good already lives as best it can:
the younger stays, a boy, or leaves, a man.
“Father,” he shows his hands, “here’s blood:
for every cell of me, a cell of you
your dust in which I sleep, your clothes I wear
your field-stone keep kept me secure;
from birth this was your child’s due
his blood watering the fields you till
his blood trickling at your heels.
Now I make my first and one request:
stand aside,” he straightens. “Let me pass."
Youth and wind demand a destination
that bends around an indistinct horizon.
The old man steps away, a little older.
The door sighs to a rest against his shoulder.
“Wait!” His blind hand fumbles in his vest
to find a coin, the smallest he can guess
and throws it in his son’s unyielding wake.
“That’s the last of me you’ll ever take."
The copper tumbles lifeless onto stone
a spiral ringing til its breath is gone;
the doorway holds the shadow of his boy,
the nothing but the rust of evening sky.

 

1993-2001 Minneapolis, Porto Alegre, Boston

A_Farmer__s_Gold_by_Indecisive_NobodyA Farmer’s Gold by Emma @ DeviantArt.com