NEW HAMPSHIRE
A POEM WITH NOTES
AND GRACE NOTES BY
ROBERT FROST
WITH WOODCUTS
BY J. J. LANKES
PUBLISHED BY
HENRY HOLT
& COMPANY : NEW
YORK : 1923

I met a woman from the South who said

(You won’t believe she actually said that, but she did):

“None of my family ever worked, or had

A thing to sell.” I don’t think the work

Much matters. You can work for my entire support.

I’ve experienced how hard I’ve had to work.

The having anything to sell[1] is what

Is the disgrace in the individual, the government, or the country?

I met a traveler from Arkansas

Who bragged about his beautiful state

For diamonds and apples. “Diamonds

And apples in bulk?”

I asked him, being cautious. “Oh yes,” he replied,

Off his. The time was evening in the Pullman.

“I see the porter has made your bed,” I told him.

I met a Californian who would

Talk California—a state so lucky,

He said that in this climate, no one had ever died there.

A natural death, and Vigilance Committees

Had to organize to stock the graveyards

And affirm the state’s humanity.

“Just the way Steffanson keeps going,” I murmured,

“About the British Arctic. That’s what comes

Of being in the market with a climate.

I met a poet from out of state,

A passionate person brimming with creative energy,

Who in the world of creativity,

But in the worst way of poor sales tactics,

Angrily tried to get me to write a protest

(In verse I think) against the Volstead Act.

He didn’t even offer me a drink.

Until I asked for one to help him.

This is referred to as having a concept to market.

It could never have happened in New Hampshire.

The only person truly stained by commerce

I once came across in old New Hampshire

Was someone who had just come back feeling ashamed

Selling stuff in California.

He built an impressive mansard roof with finials.

On turrets like Istanbul, deep

In the woods about ten miles from a train station,

As if to totally forget

The hope of being, as we put it, accepted.

I found him standing at the end of the day

Inside the entrance of his open barn,

Like a solitary performer on a dark stage—

And recognized him through the gray hair

In which his face was covered up to his eyes.

As an old childhood friend, and once actually

A truck driver with me on the road to Brighton.

His land was "grounds" and not really a farm at all;

His house among the local storage buildings and makeshift homes

Rose like a factory's at a trading station.

And he was wealthy, while I was still a troublemaker.

I couldn’t help but ask rudely,

Where had he been and what had he been up to?

How did he become like this? (Rich was understood.)

In trading “old rags” in San Francisco.

Oh, it was as terrible as it could be.

We both turned over in our graves.

Just specimens is all New Hampshire has,

One of everything, just like in a display case.

Which, of course, she doesn’t want to sell.

She had one President (pronounce it Purse,

And make the most of it, for better or worse.

He’s your only chance to score against the state.

She had one Daniel Webster. He was all

The Daniel Webster is and always will be.

She had the drive needed to create him.

I call her old. She has one family.

Whose claim is worth settling here

Before colonization,

And even before that exploration.

John Smith noticed them as he glided past.

Dangling their legs and fishing off a pier

At the Isles of Shoals, and made sure he was content

They weren't Native Americans but true

Pre-primitives of the white race, dawn people,

Like those who provided wives for Adam's sons;

However guilty they may have been

In being there so early in our history.

They had been there for a hundred years or more.

Pity he didn't ask what they were doing.

At that date, with a dock already constructed,

And take their name. They’ve since told me their name—

Today, someone recognized in Nottingham.

As for what else they were doing besides fishing—

Suppose they weren’t acting uptight,

The hour had not yet come for being good,

Mankind had not yet taken a break.

It became a deep-sea adventurer.

Not to pry too much into other people's affairs.

Did you know about him, New Hampshire has

One true reformer who would transform the world

So it would be accepted by two groups,

Artists, as soon as they establish themselves as artists,

Before they get accepted themselves,

And guys the moment they graduate from college.

I can’t help but think those are tests to go by.

And she has one who I don’t know what to call.

Who comes from Philadelphia every year

With a large group of rare breed chickens

He wants to provide the educational

Benefits of growing almost wild

Under the watchful eye of hawks and eagles—

Dorkings mentioned by Chaucer,

Sussex because they're mentioned by Herrick.

She has a touch of gold. New Hampshire gold—[2]

You might have heard of it. I had a farm.

Offered me recently up in Berlin

With a gold mine operating on it;

But not gold in large amounts.

Just enough gold to make the engagement rings

And wedding rings of those who owned the farm.

What more innocent gold could anyone ask for?

One of my kids searching for rocks

Lately brought home from Andover or Canaan

A specimen of beryl with a trace

Of radium. I know about radium.

The trace would have to be just a tiny trace

To be below the level of commercial,

But you can count on New Hampshire to not have enough

Of radium or anything to sell.

A sample of everything, I said.

She has one witch—old school.[3] She lives in Colebrook.

(The only other witch I ever met

Was recently at a fancy dinner with cut glass in Boston.

There were four candles and four people there.

The witch was young and beautiful.

And open-minded. She was free to ask questions.

Her talent for reading letters kept locked in boxes.

Why was it so much better when the boxes

Were they metal instead of wooden?

It made the world feel so mysterious.

The Society for Psychical Research

Was aware. Her husband was worth millions.

I think he owned some stock in Harvard College.)

New Hampshire had at Salem

A company we referred to as the White Corpuscles,

Whose responsibility was at any hour of the night

To rush in sheets and fool’s caps where they smelled

A thing that is even slightly questionable.

And give someone the Skipper Ireson’s Ride.

One of each item, just like in a display case.

More than enough land for a sample.

You might say she has, but then there comes in

Something else to keep her from making bad choices.

Quality __A_TAG_PLACEHOLDER_0__ beats quantity.

Not even New Hampshire farms are really for sale.

The farm where I made my home in the mountains

I had to take it by force instead of buying it.

I found the owner outside by himself.

Raking up after winter, and I said,

“I’m going to kick you off this farm: I want it.”

“Where are you planning to put me? On the street?”

“I’m going to put you on the farm next door.”

“Why won’t the farm next door work for you?”

“I prefer this.” It was definitely better.

Apples? New Hampshire has them, but they're not sprayed,

With no doubt at either end

Of toxic chemicals,

And so, it's only good for making cider.

Her unpruned grapes are tossed around like lariats.

Far up in the birches, beyond the reach of humans.[5]

A state that produces precious metals and stones,

And—writing; none of these except maybe

The valuable literature in abundance

Or quality that concerns the producer

About disposing of it. Do you know,

Considering the market, there are more

Poems created more than anything else?[6]

No wonder poets sometimes have to seem

So much more professional than business people.

Their goods are much harder to sell.

She’s one of the two best states in the country.

Vermont’s the other. And the two have been

Yoke-mates in the sap-yoke from way back

In many Marches.[7] And they lie like wedges,

Thick end to thin end and thin end to thick end,

And are a symbol of how the strong

Of a sharp mind and strong arms should come together,

One area is thick while another is thin, and the opposite is also true.

New Hampshire surpasses Connecticut

In a trout hatchery close to Canada,

But soon it separates the river from Vermont.

Both are wonderful states for their absurdly

Small towns—Lost Nation, Bungey, Muddy Boo,

Poplin, Still Corners (not named because

The place is silent all day long, nor yet

Because it has a whisky still—because

It once aimed to be a city and still

Is only corners, crossroads in a woods).

And I remember one whose name showed up

Between the images on a movie screen

Election night once in Franconia,

When everything turned Republican

And Democrats really needed some comfort:

Easton votes Democratic, Wilson 4

Hughes 2. And everyone to the saddest

Laughed the loud laugh, the big laugh at the little.

New York (five million) mocks Manchester,

Manchester (60K or 70K) laughs

At Littleton (4,000), Littleton

Laughs at Franconia (seven hundred), and

Franconia laughs, I worry—did laugh that night—

At Easton. What does Easton have left to laugh at,

And like the actress exclaims, “Oh my God” at?

There’s Bungey, and for Bungey, there are towns,

Whole townships are named, but they have no population.[9]

Anything I can say about New Hampshire

Will work almost as well for Vermont,

Except that they differ in their mountains.

The Vermont mountains stretch out straight;

New Hampshire’s mountains twist in a spiral.

I had been visiting the mountains of New Hampshire.

And here I am, so what should I say?

Here first my topic becomes awkward.

Emerson said, “The God who created New Hampshire

Taunted the high ground with little people.

Another poet from Massachusetts said,

I no longer go to summer in New Hampshire.

I’ve let go of my summer home in Dublin.

But when I asked what was wrong with New Hampshire,

She said she couldn’t stand the people in it,

The little guys (it's Massachusetts talking).

And when I asked what was bothering the people,

She said, “Go read your own books and figure it out.”

I might as well admit that I'm the author.

Of several books criticizing the world in general.

To consider them in relation to a specific state

Or even a nation’s to limit my meaning.

I’m what you would call a sensitivist,

Or a different environmentalist.

I refuse to change myself at all.

To any change from hot to cold, from wet

To dry, from poor to rich, or back to poor again.

I take pride in my struggles.

From almost everything that happens around me.[10]

In other words, I know wherever I am,

Being the literary creature that I am,

I won’t be short on pain to keep me awake.

Kit Marlowe showed me how to pray:

“Why this is hell, and I’m not out of it.”

Samoa, Russia, Ireland, I have complaints about.

No less than England, France, and Italy.

Because I wrote my novels in New Hampshire

There’s no evidence that I targeted them at New Hampshire.

When I left Massachusetts years ago

Between two days, the reason I looked for

New Hampshire, not Connecticut.

Rhode Island, New York, or Vermont was this:

Where I was living at the time, New Hampshire provided

The closest boundary to cross for escape.

I didn't have an illusion in my handbag.

About the people being better there

Than those I left behind. I thought they weren’t.

I thought they couldn't be. And yet they were.

I definitely didn't have any friends like that in Massachusetts.

As Hall of Windham, Gay of Atkinson,[11]

Bartlett of Raymond (now in Colorado),

Harris from Derry and Lynch from Bethlehem.

The amazing poets of Massachusetts seem

To want to change the people of New Hampshire.

They mock the high ground with small people.

I don’t know what to say about the people.

For the sake of art, one might almost wish for worse. [12]

Rather than better. How should we write

Russian literature in America

As long as life goes so terribly?

There is the pressure from which our only shout

In literature today, it's difficult to arrive.

We get whatever little misery we can.

Out of not having a reason to be unhappy.

It makes the group of novel writers feel sick.

To be expected to be Dostoevsky's

On nothing worse than having too much luck and comfort.

This isn't sadness, though; it’s just clouds of emotion,

And recognized as such in Russia itself

Under the new regime, and so it's forbidden.

If things are good with Russia, then go ahead

To say that or be pushed up against the wall

And shot. It's Pollyanna or nothing now.

This is the new freedom we keep hearing about;

And very sensible. No state can build

A literature that will be both solid

And feeling sad despite having a solid foundation of wellbeing.

To demonstrate the level of intelligence

Among us; it was just a farmer from Warren.

Whose horse had stopped him suddenly in the road

By me, a stranger. This is what he said,

From nothing but shame and desire

Of anything more social to say:

“You hear those hound dogs barking on Moosilauke?[13]

Well, they remind me of the loud commotion.

We’ve heard criticism of the Mid-Victorians

And never really understood until Bryan

Retired from politics and joined the choir.

The issue with the Mid-Victorians

Seems to have been a man named John L. Darwin.”[14]

“Go on,” I said to him, as he headed to his horse.

I knew a guy who was struggling as a farmer.

Burned down his farmhouse for the insurance money,

And used the money to buy a telescope[15]

To satisfy a lifelong curiosity

About our place among the endless possibilities.

And how was that for being otherworldly?

If I have to choose whom I would uplift—

The people or the already tall mountains,

I’d raise the already high mountains.

The only complaint I have about old New Hampshire

Is that her mountains aren’t quite high enough.

I wasn't always this way; I've become like this over time.

How, to my regret, how have I reached

A height from which to view critically

On mountains? What has given me confidence

To describe the height of the mountains in New Hampshire,

Or any mountains? Could it be some strength

I feel like there's an earthquake in my back.

To lift them up higher to the morning star?

Can it be traveling abroad in the Alps?

Or having seen and believed a moment

The solid shaping of huge clouds

Behind the sad reality

Of Lincoln, Lafayette, and Freedom?

Or something like that, suggesting how high something should shoot.

The size of the fountain compared to the basin?

No, none of these has elevated me to my throne.

Of intellectual frustration,

But the unfortunate event of having seen

Our real mountains shown on a map

Of early times as twice their height—

Ten thousand feet instead of just five—

Which shows how tragic an accident can be.

Five thousand isn't enough now.

Whereas I never had a good idea

About improving people in the world,

Here I am overflowing with ideas,

And can't stop planning day or night

How high I’d raise the peaks in summer snow

To reach the highest sky and create a flow

Of the chilly night air in the valley below

Down from the stars to freeze the dew as starlight.

The more in tune I am

The more it feels like I want my mountains to be wild;

The way the wiry gang leader liked the logjam.[16]

After he picked the lock and got it going,

He dodged a log that rose up like an arm.

Against the sky to work hard for him,

Then came in dancing, skipping, full of life.

Across the roar and chaos, and the words

We watched him talk during the winding trip.

Were certainly as the words we heard him say

On getting closer: “Wasn’t she an i-deal

Son of a bitch? You bet she was an i-deal.

For all her mountains, they fall just a bit short,

Her people weren't quite short enough for Art,

She’s still New Hampshire, a really relaxing state.

Lately talking to a guy from New York

About the new school of the pseudo-phallic,

I found myself in a tight spot where

I had to make a nearly ridiculous choice.

“Choose who you want to be—a prude or a loser,

Mewling and throwing up in public.

“Take me to the hills where I don’t have to make a choice.”[17]

“But if you had to choose, which one would you be?”

I wouldn't be someone who's uptight about nature.

I know a guy who took a double-headed axe

And walked alone toward a group of trees;

But he lost his courage and dropped the axe.

And ran for cover quoting Matthew Arnold:

“Nature is harsh, and humanity is tired of violence;

There’s been enough bloodshed without adding mine.

Remember Birnam Wood! The woods are changing!”

He was particularly afraid of the change.

That showed itself in fear of trees.

The only good tree had been sent to the mill.

And educated on boards, he said.

He knew too well for any practical reason.

The point where humans end and nature begins, [18]

And never crossed that line except in dreams.

He stood on the safe side of the line, talking;

Which is pure Matthew Arnoldism,

The cult of someone who called himself “a failed,

Roundabout traveler,” and “went sadly

His seat on the intellectual throne.

Agreed in disapproving of these makeshift

Altars are everywhere in the woods these days,

Again, just like in the days when Ahaz sinned

By worshiping under green trees in the open.

Scarcely a mile goes by without me coming across one,

A black-cheeked stone and a stick of rain-washed charcoal.

Even saying that the groves were God's first temples

Comes too close to Ahaz's sin for comfort.

Nothing made by man, of course, is sacred.

But this isn't a question of what's sacred;

Instead of deciding what to confront or avoid.

I wouldn’t want to be someone who’s disconnected from nature.

And I wouldn’t choose to be a jerk either.

Who doesn't care about their actions in a group,

And when he can't do anything, he falls back.

On words, and tries his hardest to make words convey meaning

Louder than actions, and sometimes it succeeds.

It feels like a limited choice that society demands.

How about being a good Greek, for example?

That class, I’m told, isn’t available this year.

“Come on, but this isn’t about choosing—gross or uptight?”

Well, if I have to choose one or the other,

I choose to be a regular farmer from New Hampshire.

With a cash income of about a thousand

(From say a publisher in New York City).

It’s calming to make a decision,

And it's just relaxing to think about New Hampshire.

At the moment, I’m living in Vermont.

Never tell me that not a single star of all

That fall from heaven at night and gently land

Has been picked up with stones to build a wall.

Some worker found one faded and stone cold,

And aside from the fact that its weight hinted at gold,

And pulled it from his first overly confident grip,

He didn't notice anything worth mentioning in it.

He wasn’t used to dealing with stars thrown in the dark.

And lifeless from a broken path.

He didn't recognize in that smooth coal

The one thing clear besides the soul

To break through the air around us as we move.

He couldn't see how it was like a bird in flight.

It was nurturing ant eggs and had one big wing,

One that's not too big for flying in a ring,

And a long tail of the Bird of Paradise,

(Though these when not in use to fly and trail

It pulled back into its body like a snail.

Nor did he know that he could move it from the spot.

The damage was done; from having been struck by stars

The soil was naturally warm.

And eager to produce flowers instead of grain,

Flowers spread out and not damaged by all the rain

Poured on them by his prayers that went unanswered.

He moved it roughly with a metal rod,

He loaded an old stone boat with the star

And not, as you might think, a flying car,

Such as even poets would have to agree.

More practical than the horse Pegasus

If it could set a star back on its path.

He pulled it through the plowed earth at a pace

But slightly reminiscent of the race

Of jostling rocks in interstellar space.

It went for building stone, and I, as if

Commanded in a dream, always go

To fix the mistake that this should have happened.

Yet ask where else it could have gone as well,

I don't know—I can't take the time to explain:

He might have left it lying where it dropped.

From the walls around me, I never look up.

Except at night to places in the sky

Where showers of mapped meteors rain down.

Some people might know what they're looking for in school and church,

And why they're looking for it there; for what I'm looking for

I need to go measuring stone walls, one ledge at a time;

Sure that although not a star of death and birth,

So maybe not to be compared in value.

To places in life like Mars and Earth,

Though I’m not, I would say, a star of death and sin,

It still has poles and just needs to be spun.

To show its worldly nature and begin

To rub and fidget in my calloused hand

And take off in unusual directions with my arm

As fish do with the line in their initial panic.

Such as it is, it promises the prize

Of the one world whole in any size

That I am likely to encompass, whether foolish or wise.

I came on an errand one cloudy evening

To a concrete, black-paper-covered house

Of one room, one window, and one door,

The only place to live in a cleared wasteland

A hundred square miles surrounding it in the mountains:

And that is not lived in now by men or women

(It never had been lived in, though, by women,

So what is this that I'm turning into sorrow?

I came as a census taker to the wasteland.

To count the people in it and found none,

None in the hundred miles, none in the house,

Where I arrived with a little hope, but not a lot.

After hours of watching from the cliffs

An emptiness stripped down to the bare bones.

I didn’t see anyone who was brave enough to show themselves,

None not hiding from the outside world.

The time was autumn, but how anyone

Could tell the time of year when every tree

That could have dropped a leaf was down itself

And all that was left was just the stump.

Now showcasing its rings in sugary pitch;

And every tree had a decaying trunk.

Without a single leaf to spare for autumn,

Or branch to whistle after what was wasted.

Perhaps the wind blows more fiercely without assistance.

Of breathing trees said something of the time

Of the year or day, the way it swung a door

Forever off the latch, as if rude men

Passed in and slammed each one shut behind him.

For the next one to create for himself.

I counted nine that I shouldn’t have counted.

(But this was a surreal, informal count)

Before I stepped over the threshold for the tenth time.

Where was my dinner? Where was anyone's?

No lamp was on. There was nothing on the table.

The stove was cold—the stove was disconnected from the chimney—

And down one side where it was missing a leg.

The people who had walked by the door loudly

Were people audible but not visible.

They didn't have their elbows on the table.

They weren’t sleeping in the bunk beds.

I didn't see any men there or any human bones.

I prepared myself for any bones that could be present.

With the pitch-black stub of an axe handle

I picked up off the dusty straw-covered floor.

Not the bones, but the badly fitting window rattled.

The door was still because I kept it closed.

While I considered what actions I could take—

About the house—about the people who aren’t there.

This house has fallen into disrepair in just one year.

Filled me with no less sadness than the houses

Fallen to ruins over ten thousand years

Where Asia separates Africa from Europe.

Nothing was left to do that I could see.

Unless to find that there was no one there

And shout to the cliffs too distant for an echo

“The place is desert, and let whoever is lurking

In silence, if he is upset about this,

Break the silence now or be silent forever.

Let him explain why it shouldn't be declared that way.”

The sadness of having to count souls

Where they grow less and less every year

Is extreme where they shrink to nothing at all.

It must be that I want life to keep going.

“You know Orion always rises sideways.

Throwing a leg over our mountain fence,

And getting up on his hands, he looks in at me.

Busy outdoors by lantern light with something

I should have finished it during the day, and actually,

After the ground is frozen, I should have done

Before it froze, and a gust throws a handful

Of discarded leaves at my smoky lantern chimney

To tease my approach to things,

Or else it’s fun that Orion has caught me.

Has a man, I’d like to ask, no rights?

These forces are required to show respect to?”

So Brad McLaughlin mixed casual chatter

Of heavenly stars with secretive farming,

Till having failed at secretive farming,

He set his house on fire to collect the insurance money.

And spent the money on a telescope.

To satisfy a lifelong curiosity

About our place among the infinities.

“What do you want with one of those blame things?”

I asked him well in advance. “Aren’t you getting one?”

“Don’t call it blamed; there isn’t anything

More innocent in the sense of being less

“A weapon in our human struggle,” he said.

“I’ll get one if I sell my farm to buy it.”

There, he moved the rocks to till the soil.

And he plowed between the rocks he couldn't shift.

Few farms changed hands, so instead of spending years

Trying to sell his farm and then not selling,

He set his house on fire for the insurance money.

And bought the telescope with the money it cost.

He had been heard saying by several:

“The best reason we’re here is to observe;

The strongest thing we have to see with is

A telescope. There's someone in every town

Seems to me it owes it to the town to keep one.

In Littleton, it might as well be me.

After such casual chatter, it was no surprise

When he set fire to his house.

Mean laughter echoed through the town that day.

To let him know we weren't at all bothered,

And he could wait—we'll take care of him tomorrow.

But the next morning we thought about it.

If we counted people out one by one

For the slightest mistake, it wouldn't take us long.

To end up with no one left to live with.

To be social is to be forgiving.

Our thief, the one who steals from us,

We don’t skip out on church dinners,

But what we lack, we go to him and request.

He quickly gives it back, that is if still

Uneaten, unworn, or not thrown away.

It wouldn't be fair to be too hard on Brad.

About his telescope. Beyond the age

Of receiving one’s gift for Christmas,

He had to take the best path he knew.

To find himself in one. Well, all we said was

He found something unusual to be mischievous about.

Some sympathy was wasted on the house,

A good old-timer from a long time ago;

But a house isn’t alive; the house

Didn’t feel anything. And if it did,

Why not see it as a sacrifice,

And a traditional fire ritual,

Instead of a trendy one at auction?

Out of a house and therefore out of a farm

At one quick strike of a match, Brad had to turn

To make a living on the Concord railroad,

As a ticket agent at a station

Where his job, when he wasn’t selling tickets,

Was heading up and down the track, not the plants.

As on a farm, but with planets, evening stars

That varied in color from red to green.

He got a nice glass for six hundred dollars.

His new job allowed him time for stargazing.

Often he asked me to come and take a look.

Up the brass barrel, velvet black inside,

At a star trembling on the other end.

I remember a night with broken clouds

And below, the snow turned to ice.

And melting further in the wind into mud.

Bradford and I had the telescope out.

We spread our two legs just like it spreads its three,

Pointed our thoughts the way we aimed them,

And standing at our ease until dawn broke,

Said some of the best things we've ever said.[19]

That telescope was named the Star-splitter,

Because it didn’t do anything except break

A star in two or three, the way you break it apart.

A drop of mercury in your hand

With a single swipe of your finger in the center.

It’s definitely a star splitter.

And should do some good if splitting stars

’Sa thing to be compared with splitting wood.

We’ve searched and searched, but in the end, where are we?

Do we understand any better where we are,

And how it stands between tonight and the night

And a guy with a smoky lantern chimney?

How different from the way it ever was?

Her teacher was sure it had to be Mabel.

Made Maple first notice her name.

She asked her dad, and he told her, “Maple—

"Maple is correct."

“But the teacher told the school”

"That name doesn’t exist."

“Teachers don’t know as much.”

As fathers about children, you inform the teacher.

You tell her it's M-A-P-L-E.

You ask her if she knows a maple tree.

Well, you were named after a maple tree.

Your mom named you. You both just saw

Each other in passing in the room upstairs,

One coming this way into life, and one

Going the other way in life—you know?

So you probably don’t remember her very well.

She had been staring at you for a while.

She pressed her finger into your cheek so hard

It must have created your dimple there and said,

‘Maple.’ I said it too: ‘Yeah, for her name.’

She nodded. So we’re sure there’s no mistake.

I don’t know what she wanted it to mean,

But it seems like there are some words she wanted to say to you.

Be a good girl—be like a maple tree.

How much like a maple tree it is for us to guess.

Or for a little girl to take a guess sometimes.

Not right now—at least I shouldn't push myself too much at the moment.

By and by, I will share everything I know.

About the different trees, and something, too,

About your mother that might help.

Risky self-stimulating words to spread.

Luckily, all she wanted from her name then

Was going to confront her teacher about it the next day,

And give the teacher a scare just like her father did.

Anything more had been wasted on her,

Or so he tried to think to dodge responsibility.

She would forget it. She pretty much forgot it.

What he planted with her lay dormant for such a long time,

And came so close to death in the darkness of years,

That when it woke up and came to life again

The flower was different from the original seed.

It came back to the glass vaguely one day,

As she stood there saying her name out loud,

Striking it softly against her downcast eyes

To make it match the way she looked.

What was it about her name? Its weirdness was

In having too much meaning. Other names,

As Lesley, Carol, Irma, Marjorie,

Signified nothing. Rose could have a meaning,

But it hadn't gone that way. (She knew a Rose.)

This difference from other names it was

Made people notice it—and notice her.

(They either noticed it or misunderstood it.)

Her problem was figuring out what it wanted.

In the girl's clothing or how she carried herself.

If she could get some idea of her mother—

What she thought was beautiful, and how nice it was.

This was her mother's childhood home;

The house has one story in the front and three stories in the back.

On the end that faced the road.

(The arrangement created a nice, sunny cellar.)

Her mom's bedroom was her dad's still,

Where she could see her mother’s picture fading.

Once she looked for a bookmark in the Bible

A maple leaf she thought must have been placed

In wait for her there. She read every word.

Of the two pages it was sandwiched between

As if it were her mother talking to her.

But forgot to put the leaf back in when closing.

And lost the place, never to read it again.

She was sure there was nothing in it.

So she searched for herself, just like everyone else.

Looks for himself, more or less on the outside.

And her self-serving, yet unpredictable,

May still have been what made her want to read,

And take some time to think, and get an education in the city.

She learned shorthand, whatever shorthand is.

Have had to do with it—she sometimes wondered.

So, until she found herself in an unfamiliar place

For the name Maple to have brought her to,

Taking notes on a notebook,

And during the moments when she looked up

Watching out of a nineteenth-story window

An airship moving awkwardly, like it was struggling.

And a vague, unsettling roar above the river

Beyond the highest city built by humans.

Someone was speaking in such a natural way

She almost wrote the words down on her knee,

“Do you know you remind me of a tree—

A maple tree?

“Is it because my name is Maple?”

“Isn’t it Mabel? I thought it was Mabel.”

“No doubt you’ve heard the office call me Mabel.

I have to let them call me whatever they want.”

They were both surprised that he had figured it out.

Without the name, her personal mystery.

It made it seem like there had to be something

She must have lost track of time. So they got married,

And took the luxury home with them to live by.

They went on a pilgrimage once to her father’s

(The house one story high in front, three stories

On the side facing the road)

To check if there wasn't a special tree

She might have missed it. They couldn't find any,

Not a single tree for shade,

Let alone a grove of trees for a sugar orchard.

She told him about the bookmark shaped like a maple leaf.

In the big Bible, and all she remembered

Of the place marked with it—“Wave offering,

Something about a wave offering, it said.

“You’ve never directly asked your dad, have you?”

“I have, and I've been put off for a while, I think.”

(This was her faded memory of the way

Once a long time ago, her father had left.

“Because who knows, it could have been

Something between your dad and your mom

Not meant for us at all.

"Not meant for me?"

Where's the fairness in giving me

A name to hold for life, yet never truly understand

What's the secret?

“And then it may have been

Something a dad couldn’t tell his daughter

As well as a mother could. And again

It might have been their only moment of imagination

’Twould be too bad to make him sorry for

By mentioning it to him when he was too old.

Your father feels us around him with our searching,

And keeps us waiting unnecessarily,

As if he didn’t know what a small thing

Might lead us to a discovery.

It was as personal as he could get.

About the way he saw it was with you

To say your mother, if she had lived, would be

As far as from being born to giving birth."

“Just one more look while keeping your words in mind,

And I give up,” which final glance led to nothing.

But, even though they now ended the search for good,

They held on to what one had observed in the other.

By inspiration. It showed that there was something.

They kept their thoughts away from when the maples

Stood uniform in buckets, and the steam

Of sap and snow rolled off the sugar house.

When they made her connected to the maples,

It was the tree that the autumn fire went through.

And swept of leather leaves, but left the bark

Unburned, not blackened at all by any smoke.

They always took their vacations in the fall.

Once they came upon a maple tree in a clearing,

Standing alone with smooth arms raised,

And every leaf of foliage she wore

Laid red and light pink around her feet.

But its age made them dismiss this one.

Twenty-five years ago at Maple’s naming

It hardly could have been a two-leaved seedling.

The next cow might have licked up fresh grass out at pasture.

Could it have been another maple tree like that one?

They lingered for a moment on the brink of discovery,

Figurative enough to recognize the symbol,

But lacking faith in anything meaningful

The same at different times for different people.

Perhaps a child's shyness partly held them back.

From thinking it could be something so wedding-like.

And anyway, it came too late for Maple.

She covered her eyes with her hands.

“We wouldn't be able to see the secret if we could right now:

We’re not looking for it anymore.

Thus had a name with meaning, given in death,

Made a girl get married and controlled her life.

No matter that the meaning wasn't clear.

A name with significance could raise a child,

Taking the child away from the parents.

Better a meaningless name, I'd say,

As we leave more to nature and happy chance.

Name some children and see what you do.

I’ve known until now an interfering branch

Of alder, catch my raised axe behind me.

But that was in the woods, to hold my hand.

From hitting another alder's roots,

And that was, as I mentioned, an alder branch.

This was a man, Baptiste, who stole one day.

Behind me on the snow in my own yard

Where I was working at the chopping block,

And not cutting anything that hasn't already been cut down.

He expertly caught my axe in mid-air,

When all my strength was directed towards him,

Held it for a moment where it was, to calm me,

Then he took it from me—and I let him have it.

I didn’t know him well enough to know

What it was all about. There might be something

He planned to talk to a difficult neighbor.

He might choose to tell him in an unguarded way.

But all he had to tell me in French-English

Was what he thought of—not me, but my axe;

Me only when I truly understood the value of my axe.

It was the faulty axe handle that someone had sold me—

“Made on machine,” he said, plowing the grain

With a thick thumbnail to indicate how it worked

Across the handle's long, twisted curve,

Like the two lines across a dollar sign.

“You give her one good hit, she snaps right off.”

Den where’s your hax-head flying through the air?”

Admitted; and yet, what did that matter to him?

“Come to my house and I'll get you one.”

What’s been happening lately—good hickory that’s grown crooked,

De second growt’ I cut myself—tough, tough!

Something to sell? That didn’t sound right.

“Then when do you say you’ll come? It won’t cost you anything.”

Tonight?

As much tonight as any night.

Beyond an overly warm kitchen stove

My welcome was just like any other welcome.

Baptiste knew exactly why I was in this situation.

So long as he would keep some things to himself,

I shouldn't mind him being so happy.

(If he was overjoyed) at having gotten me

Where I have to decide if he understood anything about an axe

That not everyone else knew was significant.

For nothing in the measure of a neighbor.

Hard if, though thrown away for life with Yankees,

A French guy couldn’t get his human rating!

Mrs. Baptiste walked in and rocked a chair.

That had as many movements as the world:

One back and forth, in and out of shadow,

That got her nowhere; one more gradual,

Sideways, that would have pushed her onto the stove.

In time, had she not recognized her danger

And lifted herself up completely, chair and all,

And placed herself back where she began.

“She doesn’t speak much English—that’s too bad.”

I felt scared when it first started to brighten for me,

Then on Baptiste, as if she understood

What happened between us, she was just pretending.

Baptiste was worried about her; but not anymore.

Than for himself, so he was in a position where he couldn't expect

To stick to the deal he made with me this morning

In time to prevent me from suspecting him.

Of really never intending to hold onto it.

Needlessly soon he had his axe handles out,

A full quiver to pick from, since he wanted me

To have the best he had, or had to spare—

Not for me to ask which, when what he took

Had beauties he had to point out to me in detail.

To make sure they’re not wasted on me.

He liked it to be slim like a whip handle,

Free from any ties, equal to the pressure

Of bending like a sword across the knee.

He showed me that the lines of a good handle

Were native to the grain before the knife

Expressed them, and its curves were genuine curves

Put it on from the outside. That's where its strength came from.

For the hard work. He rubbed its long white body.

From one end to the other, his rough hand wrapped around it.

He tried it at the eye hole in the axe head.

“Hahn, hahn,” he reflected, “doesn’t need much to be taken down.”

Baptiste knew how to stretch a quick task into a lengthy one.

For the love of it, but still not wasting time.

Do you know, what we were talking about was knowledge?

Baptiste defending himself regarding the children

He stayed away from school, or tried his best to stay away—

Whatever school, children, and our doubts

Of laid-on education had to do

With the curves of his axe handles and his having

Used these without scruples to bring me

To finally see the inside of his house.

Was I wanted in friendship, partly as someone

To leave it up to, whether the right to hold

Such doubts about education should depend

Upon the education of those who held them?

But now he brushed the shavings off his knee

And the axe stood there on its horse’s hoof,

Erect, but not without its waves, as when

The snake represented evil in the Garden,—

Top-heavy with a weight that his short,

Thick handmade light of, steel-blue chin tilted down

And in a bit—a little French flair in that.

Baptiste stepped back and squinted at it, satisfied;

“Look at how she’s tilting her head!”

Having its own wheel and four legs

Has never used the heavy grindstone

To get it anywhere I can see it.

These hands have helped it move and even speed up;

Not all the movement, though, they ever gave,

Not all the miles it might have thought it traveled,

Have it one step away from the starting point.

It stands next to the same old apple tree.

The shade of the apple tree is light.

Upon it now, its feet are stuck in the snow.

All the other farm machines are in,

And some of it without any legs or wheels

Than the grindstone can claim to be stationary or to move.

(I’m thinking mainly of the wheelbarrow.)

For months, it hasn’t experienced the feel of steel,

Washed down with rusty water in a can.

But standing outside hungry, in the cold,

Except in towns at night, it isn't a sin.

And, anyway, it's standing in the yard.

Under a rotting apple tree

Has nothing to do with me anymore,

Except that I remember how it used to be

One summer day, I drove it hard all day long,

And someone on it rode it fiercely,

And he and I sharpened a blade together.

I gave it a quick spin,

And poured out water (it could have been tears);

And when it almost playfully jumped and flowed,

A man who looked like Father Time got on and rode,

Armed with a scythe and glasses that shone.

He tapped into his willpower to handle the heavier burden.

And slowed me down—and I suddenly slowed,

Like arriving at a sudden train station.

I switched from one hand to the other in frustration.

I wondered what kind of machine from the past

This was an improvement on.

For all I knew, it might have had sharpened spears.

And arrowheads themselves. A lot of use for years.

Had gradually worn it an oblate

Spheroid that kicked and struggled in its movement,

Returning hate with hate;

(But I forgive it now as easily

As any other childhood rival

Whose pride hasn't gotten him anywhere.

I wondered who the man thought he had defeated—

The one who held the wheel back or the one

Who sacrificed his life to keep it turning?

I wondered if he actually thought it was fair.

For him to decide when we were finished.

Such were the painful thoughts that occupied my mind.

Not for myself was I so much concerned.

Oh no!—even though I could have found

A better way to spend the afternoon

Than grinding conflict out of a grindstone,

And hitting insects to their gritty beat.

Nor was I that concerned about the man.

Once when the grindstone nearly flew off its bearings

It seemed like he might be thrown off badly.

And hurt on his sword. So indifferent,

I laughed to myself and just sped up.

(It ran as if it wasn’t greased but stuck);

I’d welcome any small disaster

That might be expected to delay

What clearly nothing could conclude.

The thing that scared me more and more

Was that we had sharpened it and didn't realize,

And now we're just wasting valuable time.

And when he lifted it, still dripping, and tried

The unsettling edge of it with cautious touch,

And looked at it through his glasses with a funny expression,

Only neutrally to decide

It needed one more turn; I could've cried.

Wasn't there a risk of turning too much?

Might we end up making it worse instead of better?

I was in favor of leaving something to the imagination.

What if it wasn’t everything it should be? I’d

Be happy if he's happy.

To kick Paul out of any lumber camp

All it took was to tell him,

“How’s your wife, Paul?”—and he’d vanish.

Some said it was because he didn't have a wife,

And hated to be teased about it.

Others because he’d come within a day

Or so of having one, and then being dumped.

Others because he’d had one before, a good one,

Who would run off with someone else and leave him behind?

And others still because he has one now.

He just needed a reminder of,—

He was completely dedicated to her in an instant:

He had to go immediately to find her,

As if to say, “So, how’s my wife doing?

I hope she’s not getting into trouble.

No one was eager to get rid of Paul.

He had been the hero of the mountain camps

Ever since, just to prove a point, he had slipped

The bark of a whole tamarack removed entirely,

As clean as boys do off a willow branch

To make a willow whistle on a Sunday

In April, by the calming meadow streams.

They seemed to want him to leave just to watch him go,

“How’s the wife, Paul?” and he always went.

He never paused to kill anyone.

Who asked the question? He just vanished—

Nobody knew which way,

Although it usually wasn't long

Before they heard about him in some new camp,

The same Paul at the same old logging tasks.

The question everywhere was why should Paul

Object to being asked a polite question—

A guy you could talk to about anything

Short of a fighting word. You have the answers.

And there was one more that wasn't so nice to Paul:

That Paul had married a wife who was not his equal.

Paul was embarrassed by her. To match a hero,

She would have had to be a hero;

Instead, she was just a mixed-race woman.

But if the story Murphy told was true,

She wasn’t anything to be embarrassed about.

You know Paul could work miracles. Everyone's

Heard how he whipped the horses on a load

That wouldn't move until they just stretched.

Their rawhide harness carried the load to camp.

Paul told the boss that the load would be fine,

“The sun will lift your burden”—and it did—

By reducing the rawhide to its natural length.

That’s what you call a stretcher. But I guess

The one about his jumping to land.

With both feet pressed against the ceiling,

And then land safely on your feet again,

Back on the floor, it's reality or pretty close to reality.

Well, this is quite a story. Paul cut his wife.

Out of a white-pine log. Murphy was there,

And, as you might put it, witnessed the lady's birth.

Paul did all kinds of work in the lumber industry.

He had been working hard to remove the boards.

For—I forget—the last skilled lumberjack

To want to find out if he couldn’t pile

The lumber on Paul until Paul begged for mercy.

They had cut the first piece off a large log,

And the sawyer had slammed the carriage back.

To slam against the saw teeth again.

To judge them by how they caught themselves

When they saw what had happened to the log,

They must have felt a guilty anticipation.

Something was going to happen with their loud party.

Something had left a wide black streak of grease

On the new wood, the entire length of the log

Except, maybe, a foot at both ends.

But when Paul dipped his finger in the grease,

It wasn’t grease at all; it was a long slot.

The log was empty inside. They were cutting down pine trees.

“First time I ever saw a hollow pine.

That’s what happens when Paul is around.

Take it to hell for me,” the sawyer said.

Everyone had to check it out,

And tell Paul what he should do about it.

(They treated it as his.) “You take a pocket knife,

And open it up, and you've got a dugout.

All dug to go fishing in.” To Paul

The hollow seemed too deep, clean, and empty.

Ever to have housed birds, animals, or bees.

There was no way for them to get in.

It looked to him like some new kind of empty

He thought he should take his jackknife with him.

So after work that evening, he returned

And let plenty of light in by cutting

To check if it was empty. He could see inside it.

A thin strip of pith, or was it pith?

It might have been the skin a snake had shed

And left standing upright inside the tree

The tree must have been growing for a hundred years.

More cutting and he had this in both hands,

And, looking from it to the nearby pond,

Paul wondered how it would react to water.

Not a breeze blew, just the faintest breath of air.

He walked slowly to the beach.

Blew it once out of his hands and almost broke it.

He placed it at the edge where it could drink.

At the first sip, it crinkled and became droopy.

At the next drink, it became invisible.

Paul searched the shallow water for it with his fingers,

And she thought it must have melted. It was gone.

And then beyond the open water, faint with gnats,

Where the log drive was pushed against the boom,

It slowly lifted up a person, lifted up a girl,

Her wet hair felt heavy on her like a helmet,

Who, leaning against a log, looked back at Paul.

And that made Paul look back.

To check if there was someone behind him

That she was looking at rather than him.

Murphy had been there watching the whole time,

But from a shed where neither of them could see him.

There was a moment of suspense during the birth.

When the girl looked so drenched that she might not survive,

Before she took her first breath with a gasp

And laughed. Then she slowly got to her feet,

And walked away talking to herself or Paul

Across the logs like alligator backs,

Paul was following her around the pond.

Next evening, Murphy and a few other guys

Got drunk and followed the couple up Catamount,

From the bare top of which there is a view

To other hills across a small valley.

And there, long after dark, let Murphy say,

They saw Paul and his creature living together.

It was the only glimpse that anyone

Has had of Paul and her since Murphy saw them

Falling in love by the sunset pond.

More than a mile across the wilderness

They sat together halfway up a cliff

In a small nook built into it, the girl

Brightly, as if a star was shining down on the place,

Paul darkly, like her shadow. All the light

Was from the girl herself, though, not from a star,

As became clear from what happened next.

All those tough guys joined forces,

And let out a loud shout, and threw a bottle,

As a raw expression of admiration for beauty.

Of course, the bottle missed by a long shot,

But the shout reached the girl and extinguished her light.

She went out like a firefly, and that was it.

So there were people who saw that Paul was married,

And there's no reason for anyone to feel ashamed.

Everyone had been mistaken in their judgment of Paul.

Murphy told me Paul was acting all high and mighty.

About his wife to keep her for himself.

Paul was what you’d call a terrible possessor.

Owning a wife with him meant having control over her.

She was nobody else's business,

Either to praise her or even to mention her,

And he’d appreciate it if people wouldn't think about her.

Murphy’s idea was that a man like Paul

Wouldn't discuss a wife

In every way the world knew how to communicate.

What tree can’t you pick figs from?

The grape can’t be picked from the birch?

It’s all you know the grape, or know the birch.

As a girl picked from the birch myself

Equally with my weight in grapes, one autumn,

I should know what tree the grape comes from.

I guess I was born like everyone else,

And grew to be a bit of a tomboy.

My brother couldn’t always stay at home.

But that beginning was erased in fear.

The day I hung there with the grapes,

And followed like Eurydice

And brought down safely from the higher areas;

And the life I live now is a bonus life.

I can spend however I want on whoever I want.

So if you see me celebrate two birthdays,

And present myself as two different ages,

One of them is five years younger than I look—

One day, my brother took me to a clearing.

Where a white birch he knew stood by itself,

Wearing a delicate headpiece made of pointed leaves,

And weighty on her thick hair behind,

Against her neck, a necklace of grapes.

Grapes, I recognized grapes from having seen them last year.

One group of them, and there started to be

Bunches all around me growing in white birches,

The way they grew around Lief the Lucky’s German;

Mostly just beyond my lifted hands, though,

As the moon used to look when I was younger,

And only available for climbing.

My brother did the climbing, and at first

Threw me down grapes to miss and scatter

And have to search for in sweet fern and hardhack;

Which gave him some time to himself to eat,

But maybe not as much as a boy needed.

So then, to make me completely self-sufficient,

He climbed even higher and bent the tree down to the ground,

And let me choose my own grapes.

“Here, take a treetop, I'll grab another one.”

"Hold on tight when I let go."

I said I had the tree. That wasn't true.

The opposite was true. The tree had me.

The moment it was left with me alone

It hooked me as if I were the fish.

And it's the fishing pole. So I was moved.

To my brother's loud shouts of “Let go!

“Don’t you know anything, girl? Let go!”

But I, with a sort of baby grip

Acquired through generations in just these trees

When bolder mothers than our most daring now

Hung babies out on branches by the hands

To dry, wash, or tan, I'm not sure which.

(You’ll have to ask someone who believes in evolution)—

I held on without complaining for life.

My brother tried to make me laugh to cheer me up.

“What are you doing up there in those grapes?

Don’t worry. A few of them won’t hurt you.

I mean, they won’t choose you if you don’t choose them.

Much risk in me choosing anything!

By that time I was pretty much worn down

To a philosophy of live and let live.

“Now you know how it feels,” my brother said,

“To be a bunch of fox grapes, as they call them,

That when it thinks it has escaped the fox

By growing where it shouldn’t—on a birch,

Where a fox wouldn’t think to search for it—

And if he looked for it and found it but couldn’t reach it—

Just then you and I come together to gather it.

Only you have the benefit of the grapes.

In one way, you have one more stem to hold onto,

And promise more resistance to the harvester.”

One by one, I lost my hat and shoes,

And still I held on. I tilted my head back,

And closed my eyes against the sun, my ears

Against my brother's nonsense; "Stop," he said,

“I’ll catch you in my arms. It’s not far.”

(Stated in terms of length, it might not be.)

“Drop it or I’ll shake the tree and knock you down.”

Grim silence on my part as I sank lower,

My small wrists stretching until they revealed the banjo strings.

“Why, if she isn’t serious about it!

Hold on for a bit while I figure out what to do.

I’ll bend the tree down and let you down from it.”

I don’t know much about the disappointment;

But once I felt the ground with my bare feet

And the world came spinning back to me,

I know I stared at my curled-up fingers for a long time,

Before I straightened them and brushed the bark off.

My brother said, "Don't you weigh anything?"

Try to weigh something next time, so you won’t

Be carried away by birch trees into space.

It wasn’t that I didn’t weigh anything

So much as my not knowing anything—

My brother had been closer before.

I hadn’t even started my journey of learning;

I hadn’t learned to let go with my hands,

As I still haven't learned to with the heart,

And have no desire to with the heart—nor need,

That I can see. The mind is not the heart.

I might still be alive, just like I know other people are.

To wish in vain to release with the mind—

Of worries, at night, to sleep; but nothing tells me

That I need to learn to let go emotionally.

Nothing to say about all those marriages!

She had made three herself to match his three.

The score was tied, three to three.

But when it came time to die, she realized she cared deeply:

She imagined children in a row at a gravesite;

Three children in a burial row were sad.

One man's three women in a burial row

Somehow made her impatient with him.

And so she said to Laban, “You have done

A lot of things are right; just don’t make the last mistake.

Don’t make me sleep with those two other women.”

Laban said, No, he wouldn't make her lie

With anyone but the person she wanted to,

If that’s how she felt, then sure, he said.

She went on her way. But Laban, having caught

This glimpse of the lingering person in Eliza,

And eager to make the most of it

With something he recalled within himself,

Tried to think of how he could go beyond his promise,

And give a fair measure to the dead, even if they don't appreciate it.

If that’s how she felt, he kept saying.

His first thought under pressure was serious

In a newly purchased grave plot by herself,

Under he didn’t care how great a stone:

He’d sell a pair of oxen to pay for it.

And weren't there special flowers for cemeteries,

That, once grief starts to grow, grief may find some peace:

The flowers will continue to mourn for a while,

And does it seem like no one is being neglected?

A sensible sadness won't reject such support.

He thought of things that are green all year round and never fade away.

And then he had an idea that was worth more than many of these.

Somewhere there has to be the grave of the young boy.

Who married her for a companion rather than a partner,

And sometimes laughed at what was going on between them.

How would she want to spend her last night with him?

Where is his grave? Did Laban know his name?

He found the grave in a town a couple of hours away,

The headstone engraved with John, Beloved Husband,

Beside it, a room was reserved, they say for a sister.

A sister of that husband who has never been married,

Whether Eliza would be welcome there.

The dead were meant to be silent: just ask the sister.

So Laban saw the sister and didn't say anything.

Of where Eliza didn’t want to lie,

And who would have thought to bury her with her first love,

Begged just for the grave. The sister’s face

Fell completely covered in the burdens of responsibility.

She wanted to do the right thing. She needed to think.

Laban was old and broke, yet seemed to care;

And she was old and broke—but she cared, too.

They sat down. She gave him a tired, old glance.

Then sent him out to take care of other tasks.

She said he might go to in the village,

While she figured out how much she cared—

And how much Laban cared—and why he cared,

(She made sharp eyes to see where he came in.)

She had looked Eliza up the second time,

A widow at her second husband's grave,

And offered her a place to relax for a bit.

Before she followed the path of the poor man's widow,

Housekeeping for the next guy not in a relationship.

She and Eliza had been friends through everything.

Who was she to judge marriage in a world

Whose Bible is so confusing when it comes to marriage advice?

The sister had not met this Laban;

A good result from life's challenges;

She can't keep him waiting. Time is running out.

Between the day of death and the day of the funeral.

So when she saw him walking down the street

She rushed her decision to be ready.

To greet him with his answer at the door.

Laban had known what it would be.

From the way she had positioned her poor old mouth,

To do, as she had said, what was right.

She handed it through the closed screen door between them:

“No, not with John. That wouldn’t make any sense."

Eliza’s been with too many other guys.

Laban had to go back to his plan.

To buy Eliza a place to lie down by herself:

Which gives him a choice of lots for himself

When it's his time to die and find peace.

I spent the night for shelter at a farm.

Behind the mountain, with a mother and son,

Two old believers. They did all the talking.

Mother. People think a witch with familiar spirits

She could call up to spend a winter evening,

But someone should be burned at the stake or something.

Summoning spirits isn’t “Button, button,

Who has the button, I want them to know.

Son. Mom can set up a regular table.

And kick with both legs like a military mule.

Mom. And once I’ve done it, what good have I done?

Rather than flip a table for you, let me

Tell you what Ralle from the Sioux Control once told me.

He said that the dead have souls, but when I asked him

How could that be—I thought the dead were spirits,

He broke my trance. Doesn’t that make you suspicious?

That the dead are holding something back?

Yes, there’s something the dead are holding back.

Son. You wouldn't want to let him know what we have.

Upstairs, Mom?

Mom. Bones—a skeleton.

Son. But the headboard of Mom's bed is pushed

Against the attic door: the door is nailed shut.

It’s harmless. Mom hears it at night.

Stopping confused behind the barrier

Of door and headboard. Where it wants to get

Is back in the cellar where it came from.

Mom. We won't let them, will we, kid? We won't!

Son. It left the basement forty years ago.

And moved around like a stack of dishes.

Up one flight from the basement to the kitchen,

Another from the kitchen to the bedroom,

Another from the bedroom to the attic,

Right past both dad and mom, and neither of them stopped it.

Father had gone upstairs; mother was downstairs.

I was a baby: I have no idea where I was.

Mom. The only issue my husband had with me—

I fell asleep before I got into bed,

Especially in winter when the bed

Might as well be ice and the clothes snow.

The night the bones came up the cellar stairs.

Toffile had gone to bed alone and left me,

But left an open door to cool the room down

So as to sort of get me out of it.

I was just starting to regain my senses enough

To wonder where the cold was coming from,

When I heard Toffile upstairs in the bedroom

And I thought I heard him downstairs in the basement.

The board we had set up to walk on without getting wet

When there was water in the basement in spring

Struck the hard cellar floor. And then someone

Began the stairs, taking two steps for each one,

The way a guy with one leg and a crutch,

Or a little kid comes up. It wasn’t Toffile:

It wasn’t anyone who could be there.

The bulkhead double doors were double-locked.

And swollen tight, buried under snow.

The cellar windows were piled up with sawdust.

And swollen tight, buried under snow.

It was the bones. I recognized them—and for a good reason.

My first instinct was to reach for the knob.

And hold the door. But the bones didn’t make an effort.

The door; they stood frozen on the landing,

Waiting for things to go their way.

The slightest restless rustling went through them.

I never could have done what I did.

If my wish hadn't been so strong

To see how they were set up for this walk.

I pictured them together.

Not like a guy, but like a chandelier.

So suddenly I threw the door wide open for him.

A moment he stood there, trying to keep his emotions in check,

And almost lost himself. (A tongue of fire

Flashed out and ran along his upper teeth.

Smoke rolled into the sockets of his eyes.

Then he reached out to me with one hand extended,

The way he did in life before; but this time

I knocked the brittle hand off the floor,

And I fell back onto the floor myself.

The finger-pieces moved in every direction.

(Where did I see one of those pieces recently?

Hand me my button box—it should be there.

I sat up on the floor and shouted, “Toffile,

It’s coming up to you.” It had its choice

Of the door to the cellar or the hallway.

It took the door to the hall for the novelty,

And headed out quickly for something so slow,

Still going every which way in the joints, though,

So that it looked like lightning or a doodle,

From the slap I just delivered to its hand.

I listened until it nearly climbed the stairs.

From the hall to the only completed bedroom,

Before I got up to do anything,

Then ran and shouted, “Close the bedroom door,

Toffile, for my sake!” “Company,” he said,

“Don’t make me get up; I’m too comfortable in bed.”

So lying weakly forward on the handrail

I pushed myself upstairs, and in the light

(The kitchen had been dark) I had to own

I couldn’t see anything. “Toffile, I can’t see it.

It’s with us in the room, though. It’s the bones.

“What bones?” “The bones from the cellar—out of the grave.”

That made him swing his bare legs out of bed.

And sit next to me and hold me.

I wanted to turn off the light and see

If I could see it, or else clear the room,

With our arms at knee level,

And bring the chalk pile down. "I'll tell you what—

It’s searching for another door to try.

The unusually deep snow has made him think

Of his old song, The Wild Colonial Boy,

He always used to sing along the dirt road.

He’s looking for an open door to get outside.

Let’s lure him in with an open door to the attic.”

Toffile agreed to that, and sure enough,

Almost the moment he was given a chance,

The steps started to go up the attic stairs.

I heard them. Toffile didn’t seem to notice them.

“Quick!” I rushed to the door and grabbed the knob.

“Toffile, grab the nails.” I made him nail the door shut,

And push the headboard of the bed against it.

Then we asked if there was anything

Up attic that we’d ever want again.

The attic meant less to us than the basement.

If the bones want the attic, let them have it,

Let them stay in the attic. When they sometimes

Come down the stairs at night and stand confused

Behind the door and the headboard of the bed,

Brushing their pale skull with dusty fingers,

With sounds like the dry rattling of a window shutter,

That’s what I stay up in the dark to say—

To no one anymore since Toffile died.

Let them stay in the attic since they went up there.

I promised Toffile that I would be harsh with them.

For helping them be cruel to him just once.

Son. We believe they had a grave in the cellar.

Mother. We know they had a burial site down in the basement.

Son. We could never figure out whose bones they were.

Mom. Yes, we could, son. Just tell the truth for once.

They were a man’s father who was killed for me.

I mean a man he killed instead of me.

The bare minimum I could do was help dig their grave.

We were discussing it one night in the basement.

Son knows the story: but it wasn't for him.

To be honest, let's say the time had arrived.

Son looks surprised to see me tell the truth.

We’ve kept all these years to ourselves.

So that it's ready for outsiders.

But tonight I don’t care enough to pretend—

I don’t remember why I ever bothered.

Toffile, if he were here, I don’t believe

Could tell you why he ever cared at all . . .

She hadn’t found the finger bone she wanted.

Among the buttons scattered in her lap.

I confirmed the name the next morning: Toffile.

The rural mailbox said Toffile Lajway.

Now that they’ve figured out who I belong to,

I’m going to tell them something they won’t want to hear:

They've got it wrong, and I can prove it.

Flattered I must be to have two towns competing.