The Hermit Goes Up Attic

    Up attic， Lucas Harrison， God rest

    his frugal bones， once kept a tidy account

    by knifecut of some long-gone harvest.

    The wood was new. The pitch ran down to blunt

    the year： 1811， the score： 10， he carved

    into the center rafter to represent

    his loves， beatings， losses， hours， or maybe

    the butternuts that taxed his back and starved

    the red squirrels higher up each scabbed tree.

    1812 ran better. If it was bushels he risked，

    he would have set his sons to rake them ankle deep

    for wintering over， for wrinkling off their husks

    while downstairs he lulled his jo to sleep.

    By 1816， whatever the crop goes sour.

    Three tallies cut by the knife are all

    in a powder of dead flies and wood dust pale as flour.

    Death， if it came then， has since gone dry and small.

    But the hermit makes this up. Nothing is known

    under this rooftree keel veed in with chestnut

    ribs. Up attic he always hears the ghosts

    of Lucas Harrison's great trees complain

    chafing against their mortised pegs，

    a woman in childbirth pitching from side to side

    until the wet head crowns between her legs

    again， and again she will bear her man astride

    and out of the brawl of sons he will drive like oxen

    tight at the block and tackle， whipped to the trace，

    come up these burly masts， these crossties broken

    from their growing and buttoned into place.

    Whatever it was is now a litter of shells.

    Even at noon the attic vault is dim.

    The hermit carves his own name in the sill

    that someone after will take stock of him.