I visited recently with my good friends Harvey and Mary Russell at their home in Enterprise, Utah. I had not seen them for years. Harvey, my humble hero, is a leading figure in my nonfiction book Rabbit Lane: Memoir of a Country Road. Named “Many Feathers” by American Indians, Harv helped me build my chicken coop and lead me through an Indian sweat ceremony in Erda, Utah. My impressions during the visit were poignant and bitter-sweet, demanding expression in this impressionistic poem.
IMPRESSIONS OF ERDA AND ENTERPRISE
Car window down:
“Is this Harvey’s place?”
A wave to drive in, and smiles:
three mechanics, brown
where I should have seen white:
lost their teeth to the chew.
Engine block rocks
from its rolling crane.
“You’re the one that wrote the book?”
“And you write poems, too?”
“Yea,” I said, “but
I don’t know a spark plug
from a distributor cap,
like you!”
That storm broke branches off
Harv’s old elm. “Shall I cut them
small for the stove, or long
for the truck bed to the dump?”
“Oh, it’s not your mess—
long for the dump.” I cut them
short for next winter’s warming.
Neighbors burning winter’s detritus,
wind-lopped limbs, old stumps.
Pleasant smell of woody smoke.
The whole family shovels
manure over the garden plot;
rich, dry, composted;
like I used to do, before.
Perfect pens for homers,
robust cocks chortling in one,
slighter hens in the other.
At 79, he still races.
“When he finally left,
he took everything, even
the lightbulbs and toilet seat.”
Worn brown leather boots
on the workbench
by the big rusty drill press,
under dust.
“Will you keep an eye on my place Harv?”
“pow pow pow!”
Ducks falling from the sky,
poached from his neighbor’s pond.
“pow pow pow!”
Geese poached from the sky.
“But I called this time;
they think they own all the birds
in the whole country.”
Old Ekins took
their guns, their geese.
One protested: “Too late:
the goose is in the oven.
Sunday dinner!”
Said Old Jim: “Not too late:
take the Sunday goose out!”
Eight hens scratch in the grass,
keep him in eggs.
Two roosters corral and crow.
Ducks waddle where they will.
The garden tool shed:
a secret privy, with shovel and hoe.
“Toss in a cup of wood stove ash.”
(The neighbors, they don’t know.)
Lilac bushes, just leafing,
a long arcing row
next the dirt drive;
promising purple perfume.
Flapjacks browned on cast iron;
butter; blueberries; pure maple syrup;
my first goat milk, creamy and sweet.
Crazy Cliff dragged a trailer house
up a Skull Valley mountain
with a rickety track hoe; by some miracle
the belcher didn’t topple over backwards.
A lightning bolt split:
two fires funneling down
to that trailer. A bomber dropped
red retardant dust,
panicked mustangs plunging through.
Mother made Mary
give away her baby;
only 15. She married
the man at 16, and met
her first-born son 49 years late.
Brussels and yams
roasted soft
in olive oil and herbs;
fresh bread and pot roast.
Third and fourth marriages
for both: married twice
to each other: “We just drifted
apart, until God brought us
back together.”
“Living with someone is just
hard, rubbing and bumping
against each other.”
“He kissed me
tenderly
on the cheek.”
Harvey, Mary, and Roger
Rabbit Lane: Memoir of a Country Road is available in print and for Kindle at Amazon.
Rabbit Lane 
Aww…Rog, you are so cool…..
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What a writer you are, Roger…I was in the place, the time, knew the people, and smelled the lilacs. Bravo!
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Thank you very much, Patsy. That means so much, especially given the inspirational slump I’m in. One day at a time, right?
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Hey, Roger, if that’s a slump I want to be there too!
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Well, I felt pretty good about “Impressions”: a small oasis in my (hopefully temporary) poetic desert!
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Beautiful! What a brilliant writer you are! I loved reading Rabbit Lane, my childhood hangout. You truly express the thoughts in my heart. And you, like my father, are my hero! Thank you.
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Oh my goodness! Thank you so much! So great to hear from you!
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The main thing I love about your poems is how real they feel. I always feel transported to another place when I am reading them.
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Then I have succeeded in my goal to write vivid, accessible poetry. Thank you for the kind compliment. I have eschewed poetic form (though I admire the masters like Robert Frost), partly because is it very difficult to master, and partly because I choose a simpler art form. That you like my poems means a great deal. Thank you again.
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Well Roger, the signs of the times are definitely upon us now are they not ? It looks like we are in them for the long haul ! Mary and l are going to miss your Spring visit at this time . I hope l am still around when this crud all blows over ! I hope you and your family escape all this and remain healthy through it all too . Your visits can’t come soon enough !
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Scooting thru these pages looking and trying to find a subject , l stumbled upon these past poems and stories of yours and pulled them up again and had a rush of nostalgia,happiness and some sadness seep in and enjoyed them even more ! And of course the bit about Erda and the memoirs that went with it was reminders of things and experiences that the second time around afforded even more ! Because of violations on Charley’s part and because of my love for wild life and my vows to protect them we had become enemies for a period of time ! But as time went by we began to forgive one another and became friends again and l’m glad we did before he left this world .
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