On a little stream in the woods under the shadows of Mt’ Eckles and Mt. Hene-stop
On a little stream in the woods-stop… there lived Stop
There was a little stream named Hene Creek, on the Whiteshed road: where the Komkoffs’ tried to run me off the road in their VW bus, with a sign that read, “just learning to drive,” and “We’re all natives now.” of John Pilger fame.
STOP
Where the stumps as wide as outstretched arms were pillored from the forest-leaving a little hole gravel pit and a hidden poop tree
Where you could get lost in the salmon berry bushes saying one for me two for you,
Stop
Where the boy, he would fall asleep alone in the woods, with a semi-auto 22, not shooting birds, just resting on moss colored grass.
Stop stop stop Stop for you Stop Stop Stop, ok continue, please continue
a black woman came into the back of the ‘non-public’ library holding a gray kitten to her cream -colored bosom.
Central casting did well that day, you sexy thing.
He ran under the table, he ran under the chairs, and everything.
Stop, boodadee bogadee, leet’s get this race started.
In a little stream in the woods, under the shadows of the tall trees, and the mountain, remote, set tall, so far away, Mt. Eckles and Mt. Hene, there lived alone in the woods, on Hene creek, a gravel pit, a father , his son, and a gray cat Hene, in a small trailer.
Stop
“He’s so stupid, “ the father said, “see how he sticks his tail out when he is eating. I continually step on it, he’ll never learn.”
Please stop
Inside outside, all the time, will he never make up his mind?”
“Stop”
He died you know, the cat.
“Who?”
“Silver, please forgive me if I seem a little strange, and down, and insensitive, and with self pity….”
“The cat Silver died in White Pass, the mountains, on Silver Lake, in the middle of winter.”
“I was traveling too fast, around the corner. I’m not an excellent driver-especially with my paw around. It was all I could do on the icy road, rather than go off the cliff, to go into a controlled spin, into the side of a snow bank.”
The back doors flew open .
The spare tires inside flew out.
And outran Silver. I didn’t see him run, only he wasn’t there.
I tracked him, in the falling snow-Dad left in the green van {it was a green van}.
“The brakes don’t work” he said. “Oh no they do, they just got packed with snow” There was little damage {to the green van-Silver is missing000].
“Oh well , I’m turning this thing around, leaving you with the rabbit—the Volkswagon Rabbit.”
I stayed all night, climbing up and down the valley. Where did he go?
Stop
“Nathan, Nathan,” Brian said, “You’re cat is in the middle of the creek.”
Stop
On a sandbar.
How did he get there ?
Could he have jumped ten feet from that log?
He disappeared a week before we left the Hene Creek “where the willows grow”.
Brian said he showed up the day after we left.
With a wound
The gigantic Great Horned Owl that always flew over us, had swooped down and gotten him by his hind legs. We had to go back and get him.
Hene, Hene. Some call him Hene Majestic, Oldest brother called him Hene the Weenie. Also he’s called ‘The Grey King, or ‘Kink of Greyness’; or Hene Beaners because he runs away and poops little beans “cause sacared”. I fancied him Henestrive the Grey, a British Blue, or maybe a Russian Blue, or a Korat.
Stop
When we moved in the big city he ran away. He panicked and bolted, trailing a leash ripped out of my hand
This after that first night in new house, we slept under the stairs, my room, because I was the youngest, arm in arm, my pillow, my love.
I got a paper route to find him. Through the wee hours of the morning , through many drifts of snow, I plowed ahead—Always wondering, always looking.
What was that dark shadow running across the road?
Stop, # months, 7 days, or 5Minutes later {French accent}…
“I will find you”
Stop
“The papers are soaking wet!”
Stop
“”And I will find you, I will find you”
Drop the fantasy. Nobody is buying it. There is no white horse fighting a mighty buffalo in some valley with a mighty “Hi Ho Silver. I mean stop your narrative and get real.
Pa helped on Sunday with the papers
“Hene?”, “Hene?”
a streaking cat stopped.
And he ran, 3 months and 7 days, in the middle of an Alaskan winter
And he leaped up unto me. God what a smelly cat. He smelled like a dumpster. He wouldn’t stop nudging me. Was it really him? It had to be.
Stop
”Give me the power, I beg of you”
Silence and a blessing that will never leave you.
“Hells’ yeah, God that would be nice”
Stop
“Can I go watch He-man and Man-at -arms by the power of Greyskull and all that?”
Five minutes then,
But first stop superman and begin again
With a creek in the Alaskan woods, with the mountains, and a gravel pit, and a pooped on tree...
better
What does this poem mean to you?
?
Good, better but dumb, almost dumb. Now make a decision and in compassion pour out your heart again, or I won’t pour it into you. No not you emotions, that’s fine but I’m not a babysitter. Your heart, in your chest, find, Unless you like being roasted over an open fire Nathan→you’re shadow