The Augurs of Fire Hunger & Water

Augur of Fire

Before seed   root sprout flower & fruit unfurrowed
land   upbroken & laid by turnwrist             stripped
bare   of understory & pine limb             black
char

of smouldered wood
burnt in the hollows

& showered in a measure of gasoline & diesel
as his hand
arcs a charge to flames   & flames trace   back
to the lip   as ribs close w| air & open   stop

then a line burns   until it falls as suns in a finite field

clear now   after loggers cull the poles from sawtimber   & take both to mill

& tractor spades pull the stumps   for rosin
for tall oil & styrene-butadiene rubber   pesticide & chewing gum
additives

& to make ready land for my father to plant                         his waygoing crop
in alluvial soil

between two branches   I am drenched in his shadow            more than sweat

& I am bounded to his steps   to lay seeds in his risen hills
to harden our dirt against rain
& to rise from his hand

as bolts of prophecy
& ruderal vines.

Augur of Hunger

Such provision

as both drop to heels   after an offered & taken drupe
among the barks & chirps of fear & a summer passed

w| days of work gift wash & rest   again   work gift wash & rest   & God:
I didn’t gather from under grove trees
I didn’t open palms to our wildness

I feared a cut of incisors & his castlong shadow on my meekness so
grasses seeded
& cones dropped
my father who fed a squirrel w| pecans from his hand
& my assurance as heir to an absolute sovereign creator
a nomadic pastoralist
& his son stands back   on a signal hill   absoiled w|out regard
for word & faith
I take for granted

dreys of leaves twigs bark & moss   here   leaves twigs bark & moss   & God
here when & now ain’t
or   I think they ain’t
I ain’t got no idea
I ain’t here either

here: where a pond gonna be   past dogwood hickory & ash
strong as a heart septum broken    shell against shell until

I drop at the base of a hollow tree   & rest
before we plant a last crop on new ground   & old land
come again to new ground by some briars where I lived all by his side
& he ascends back into a canopy of oak

while I gone to be something & ain’t yet come back.

Augur of Water

The bones of a father & son obedient to God                    bend at a galvanized basin

where the steers drink from runoff   from a valley of gables

& we sink our hands in ouroboros of love & bruises                      yellowed as broken
biliverdins or yolk stains   unwashed before &

caught now in cold splashes as our arms plunge   & rainwater cleans
the dust & gathers mud
in a spiral of destiny

ripples

after labor in morning & lostland.   I stumble froward on a path
of a herd-roused leseness   settled

on a subsistence farmer   & a child convicted he & his rustic kin covenantal
chosen by providence   & divined as cablish in a current

w| loam roots bark wood leaf seed & fruit   w|out deed

I can’t inherit the field we cleared   & my soil turns gray & then

I wash away sap & scabs   & keep two acres of succession

as a stiffnecked son
his obstinate stubborn mind   of plough arrish or pasture

forgets thickets   shaws & brakes   forgets stands of pine
as a father bows to divine
from settled branches.