Poundmaker
Poundmaker
beating a black ash log
with a four-pound hammer
making splints from the wood.
Why did that grandfather
teach you to make baskets that way?
Poundmaker
beating that log
for seven days straight.
It has yet to disappear.
I asked you for mercy on day four.
Couldn’t see straight
or remember what I was doing.
Sound bouncing off the mountains
ringing through the trees,
and around the lake,
settling in my skull.
Why do you do it?
Reading the story of the land, you say,
and listening to the spirit of the wood.
Damn you, Poundmaker,
and damn your four-pound hammer,
beating the daylight
out of that black ash log.
Why must you weave your baskets
from the flesh of the past?
© Patrick O’Neill 2010. All rights reserved
