— the exactest element for us,
In which we pronounce joy like a word of our own
Well we’d heard it to be veiny with cottonmouths I’m not gonna lie.
•
For true
the sheer ( snake-electric ) back-beyond of the place
put a pull on us like a magnet.
•
That that rag-rope ( flagged and ) barred the path just egged us on.
•
( To go and
skulk- and sidle-learn
to palp and tap the edge
to crack us in. )
•
—What’d we feel there once we’d crossed?
•
Veritable
thought-thick trunks
of swampfoot oaks.
•
Something like ‘ A shift in the structure of experience. ’
•
Here was
Johnny Pep ( shrapped home from war )
branch-dragging
agglomerating discards and disjecta.
•
His craving wove a plexus ( more a house ) from limbs and leaves.
•
He knit us in:
he left us be. He let us watch he watched us try
( to climb to ape his crisscross weave )
to pitch to plait the roof.
•
Something like ‘ Yall strayboys welcome to be welcome if you work. ’
•
Didn’t we ‘work’—
particular night-hoots ( and near-chromatic whistle-riffs ) in echo;
beast-likenesses ( or bugs )
he whittled live from hickory showed us how.
•
He’d let us
watch him strip and shave
the shagbark bark
to taste ( to read ) to mull the grain.
•
Something like ‘ root-room ’ I reckon. Something like
•
‘ When Johnny Pep hitched home from war
we took to carving ( curing ) scraplings into shapes. ’