Grade

  

 

Out of shape getting out of fifty three 

Not top of hill where rain seeps into pasture

That's where raz fills his cabin cistern

And fattens the sheep near the ancient log section round 

Riddled with old saw blades 

From skillsaws like shelf mushrooms of teethed carbide teeth gone dull 

A few years back looking at him now 

Maintenance a city gym not a lot splitting an abstinence not a barefoot walk up the creek 

Dew moisture gathers by the trillion

Runs down the grass blade 

Waters it's host and worm by gravity not pitching camp 

Rather finding low point 

It goes there around a buried boulder

Or plough head or GMC fender or travois hitch knob 

Gradation, water studies on the run 

Below frogs under ferns under huckle bushes under fir under reprieve 

Temporarily, the watershed havens 

In late spring it's gone 

In summer the beaver ponds give up their canteen to the passing heat 

Unlike the swale where I am from 

Which originates along the mountain to feed lesser mountains 

To supply great hills to lend farmland and elk and horse before  

Bloodgood Creek becomes the little klickitat becomes a tangent 

Even in summer making way under 

Every condition of basalt 

Round rock shafts of slabs pebble sand dust 

To the Klickitat not far from Columbia not far from Pacific 

It's not a bad shape to be in, or of, or with