Rod Peckman

  

 

Blackberries

Self-help you find does not help.
Summer green vines bend
but refuse to break.

In winter you find yourself
armed to the teeth
against these spiked
hollow reeds,
pushing mud
with your knees.

What have you left
but shears and buckets
that will not contain
this unwieldy wicker.
And your cuts lack any grace.

Recalcitrant, they will
not yield to the shapes
you’ve imagined.

I dreamed once
of tending a garden like Eden
then thought, with fear,
of the terrible yearning.
Now I struggle
with this small space.

We are simply overrun
and must face this cold wet truth,
or this dust dragonfly reality,
depending on the season.
No matter the reason or time you choose,
thorns find seams through gloves.

And the mire finds ways
to pace short days
or the slow waning days.
Depending on the season.

Do not struggle,
the ones you pay
all say.

Why I Can’t Fly to Jamaica in April

Nightly I hear the beavers at work.
There is no use in confrontation
as they always slip away into the moonlight water,
polished to a sheen. Black orbs, their heads glide
on the dark skin of this small lake,
beneath the fringe of firs and cottonwoods,
cattails and wild grasses.

The only sign
upon my of my approach to the shore
is the slap of flat tails upon the water.
A taunt, a signal, or true fear,
I have no idea.

As I give up my watch to the night,
I know my morning will be consumed
with clearing their nighttime industry.
Sticks and larger branches, aquatic weeds,
and a soft black mortar of mud.
The occasional beer can on the top
of their nascent dam, as if to say,
you should all be ashamed.

I know it is a pull of instinct
to mute the sound of running water.
That they are here gives me pleasure.
That every morning I’m in my hip waders
and thick rubber gloves
dismantling their reclamation project,
makes me wish they would simply move on,
not too far perhaps, just another neighbor’s stream
if only for one year. Not too far.
Despite the trouble they bring,
I’d miss their sleek dark heads bobbing
in the growing dusk, flowing with purpose,
making plans for this night’s construction
that I have no answer for.

Abhor Day

I truly hate you, Cottonwoods.
Snow in May. Indelible pitch in April.

Leaves from July to December.

Falling limbs in the slightest breeze
leave javelins quivering in the grass.

I hate you, Cottonwoods. I know your
designs. Your will to kill me in my sleep

during one of the milder winter storms.

I want to cut you down. You know this.
I’m sure this plays into our mutual antipathy.

Yes. You could crush my house and me
with this volition and just an excuse of wind.

We should cherish and love trees. Just

live under the thumbs of these swaying towers.
They grow while they die and revel

in their obsession with amputation and threat.
If only I had a waiver from the Association

you’d already have been stumps.

Rod Peckman lives in the country. His friends and loved ones wonder at the wisdom of this, but Rod continually tells himself not to take this beauty for granted. Rod says he’s sure his dog never wants to come face to face with a raccoon again, and she’ll concede the barbecue to a hungry black bear searching fat in the grease catch. Rod works for a large library system and, despite this, still loves books. His work has been published in Barnwood, The Argotist Online, and A Little Poetry.