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FEATURED AUTHOR—POETRY Mountain Modes: Seven Dulcimer Eo_£ms________________________ 1. AEOLIAN In this mode fog is gathering C minor in walnut dells. The leaves drop, yellow moisture, cast off so discourteously. Amidst New England asters, another wayfaring stranger shoulders his delicate dulcimer, strings loosened so as not to snap in cold or loneliness. He falls in love only with all he knows is leaving soon. The odd thatch of black hair on the outer flank of the hand, the small smooth spot on a chest otherwise pelted: details only the reverent retain. Aeolian autumn is stunning the pastures, fingerpicking the first threat of frost, a fragile dew. A man in the city stands on a rooftop in a Sargasso of rooftops; a soldier in the Sahara reads letters from 13 Jeff Mann West Virginia and squints with salt. Wayfarers insulate themselves as best they can, in denim, in leather, in another generation's scraps, the pieced salvation of quilts, the memories of commensal body heat. They move in minor keys towards hearths whose fuel they themselves with straining backs in dream provide, towards broad beds alone, towards mulled cider and soup-beans, a family graveyard, a mountain tune. 2. LOCRIAN Where is there to rest? Not the pasture, where the ground-cherries plumped, where, in late summer, ironweed pooled. Not the forest, where the flicker hammered, where we walked among the emerald, illicit hand in hand, where we sucked nectar from nipped honeysuckle blooms. Not the loft of last century's barn, where hay scratched our cheeks as we lay through the rain, storm strumming corrugated tin, sipping moonshine from a flask, beard to beard, post-seminal drowse. Not the farmhouse porch, or wedding-ring quilt, or the pantry full of canned peaches, corn relish, half-runners. You left long ago, for another life, 14 and tonight I am landless, driving these backroads drunk, snow swirling in the headlights, and what we owned is gone. Now strangers yank our oaks from the earth. Tree roots sprawl against the sky. They gasp like landed trout, stacked shoulder to shoulder, bier-burnt. It is a blessing now, how you are not here, how you do not see machines break the mossstained stones, stain the streams with vermilion, tangerine, puce, bury the water deep. My grandfather's pasture is a bowl of shattered shale, the maple grove a heap of boulders, a clatter of coal trucks. The well is dry, the farmhouse flattened, the cornfield a great beast's dung-heap, where it scratches up dust and hides its waste. There is only the graveyard left, where, each Memorial Day, we trimmed the spruce boughs and the weeds about the graves, then lay together, naked inside May, inside young grass and red maple shade. Once I hoped we might have ended here, this fret where, after unrelenting dissonance, a callused forefinger slides into peace, into resolution. Ferrell Ridge, last tooth left in a shattered mouth. Headstone bearing one name, not two. I lean against it, pretending it is a mighty tree. I sip from the pewter flask you bought me in Scotland. In Celtic swirls, two warriors share a cup. Tomorrow the blasting and digging will begin again, rocks fall from the sky, hills upend themselves, but tonight it is silent enough to hear the chimes of frost, the slow way ice marries my moustache. I take another swig. I cannot feel my toes. 15 Tonight I will trace the stars, stroke the few last trees. Someone must stay to console the dead, name the mountains that are gone. 3. IONIAN June. Chicory's sapphire, grassy thighs, boys down by the reservoir, drinking cheap wine and sprawling half-naked on car hoods, soaking in the sun, the wrinkles to come. Ionian is the first tuning, the easiest, major chords of college days, the years before complexity, before deaths line up like onyx abacus beads. The Greek restaurant on Route 19, long gone, where my mother gave me the larger share of baklava, and, like most sons, I met generosity not with gratitude but growing entitlement. Ionia in Asia Minor, the library of Ephesus, apple tea, the long bodiless nights with Kevin, every night...

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