Yonder Mountain: An Ozarks Anthology

Michael Burns

Michael Burns Michael Burns helped found the Creative Writing Program at Missouri State University, where he taught for twenty-five years. A graduate of the University of Arkansas Creative Writing Program, he published two chapbooks, When All Else Failed and And As for Darkness, as well as two books of poetry, The Secret Names and It Will Be All Right in the Morning. He also edited two books of critical essays. His final book of poems, Night of the Grizzly, was published posthumously by Moon City Press in 2012. Born June 3, 1953, in Egypt, Arkansas, Burns retired to Louisville, Kentucky, where he passed away on October 27, 2011. qQ Farm Road 93 This road’s so slick my pickup wants to skate down every hill, to turn where there is no turn, though I’ve loaded the back with bench-set weights and rock from a flowerbed. A calmer man would find a safer route where all is clear and traffic hums, where morning plows have shut the night-drift up, but I’m thinking it’s Sunday here —the bone and blood, the longing, mild regret— 42 and I might be able to get to the lake and watch the ducks, go out myself on the ice. I want to walk along the bridge and make believe I’m talking to God. I need advice on everything, not just this white on black, and I’m almost there. I’m taking the long way back. On the Fifth Day of the Search —for David Tate, Neo-Nazi and accused killer Redbud and dogwood, everywhere the flowering, and a branch of Long Creek flowing into summer. Here are the cardinal, the chipmunk, the whitetail, and maybe even the black bear who has lumbered out of his sleep. There’s windsong in the treetop, Or helicopters. Are you lying belly down on a cool stone, resting your head on the shirt you stole last night from a backyard clothesline? I imagine you slithered into a crevice where you mouth words like hungry, bastards, cold; or from someplace deeper: afraid and now. Whatever the world seemed to you in winter in Idaho, an Ozark spring fulfills the covenant. You move, and the mockingbird follows, and the crow. Michael Burns 43 After October Rain —Auricularia auricular. Edible. From Latin, “ear” Out near the fence, I found A tree ear lying, alone This morning In the wet yard swing And above it, on a log Caught two years now And rotting in the limbs Of a Red Thorn I saw dozens more still Glowing with rain And dew Hung there As if they were listening. I’ve stored them now In a zip-top bag filled With water In the refrigerator. I’m going to eat them. I can’t say what they heard. 44 Michael Burns Sweet Potatoes When I was small, my father asked me before he left for work one day if I would like—as he had taught me— to dig some new potatoes out from the fall garden. I did, carefully at first, with the short shovel, making my way down to the first red skin, then up and over my wrists with both of my hands. I’ve still got this pale scar from the cut I took from broken glass, to my finger. I stopped the bleeding. I laid them out in rows to show him when he came home. I’ve made a spot in my back yard for tomatoes, squash, green beans, ornamental red peppers. And this year on a whim I decided to plant sweet potatoes. Frost has fallen, and I’m so brave I’ve gone this morning out to reap my rewards. I spade the ground around the roots a little, as if I were mapping some archaeological site, but nothing shows. I take the shovel, plant my foot, and the hell with it, I push until I hear the cut of flesh, or something vegetable, and like it. Oh, yes, I’ve found the scrawny, orange suckers tunneling for China, like the mole, or diving like a submarine under attack, and I go after them with both hands again and dig for them, like runaways, out of a rock and hard place. I swear I can feel the scar in my finger throb. OK, you don’t have to give me that, but take time for a moment...