A Wood, A Throne
He walked out one day,
a long, unhurried walk alone
and came to a place along the channel
with 12 beers in tow.
6 beers is a lack of commitment.
But 12 beers is a surrender to whatever.
The thought is somewhere in there
to not remember entirely when you have
decided to turn back.
He found his place when the feeling had struck
him so, and he sat overlooking the grey brown
water of the channel rushing in and out from
the big lake. But there ain’t a good reason to
sit in the dirt. So he built a chair, a seat of logs
dug in to the hillside with a latter back and
great knots of beech to rest his righteous and
labored hands on, his seat overlooking this
that was becoming a domain and by the 4th beer
it was.
And then his seat was a throne.
And by the 6th it was finished and he sat
and looked over the little water that ran by
and put his beers beside him and drank them
warm with the foam boiling over when he
cracked them open and leaned to blow the suds
off into the slow running water and the
few ducks drifted about wearily. But
for a few scraps of bread. They were not unfamiliar
with this gratuity. There was a neighborhood on the
far side of the channel.
He watched
until restless
and he stood beers
in tow and scrambled
up the hill and wandered
aimlessly through the woods
returning to previous haunts
unkempt, untended strongholds
and palisades withering in the damp,
lesser-traveled places of the wood — built
under similar circumstances, under similar
states of mind. Often with likeminded companions.
The sound of the waves crashing on the big lake
always following.
Through a neighborhood with beach access he
left the woods. A studied composure in the failing
light along the green lawns. It was dark when he
came empty handed to the house he lived. But for
a memory vague now that had been relived not
a few times before.
And so the 12-beer-ed man arrived home in a way
that occurred as naturally as a rider lost in unfamiliar
country who had set his horse a-wander
and finally somehow arrived home
by no fault of his own. But for his horse
he would
still be a-wander.
But for the horse,
he is a-wander.
