8.

As a boy in 1956 my sense of geography
extended no farther than the eye could see

What I could not see was more myth than map
so I imagined a Midwest tornado had ripped through our Michigan home

and dropped me into the desert long before
it ever reached the Land of Oz

The Hawthorne ranch was a world unto itself
like a remote island surrounded by a sea of sage

and I was its prince, son of the rightful king
who lost his kingdom to the lord of the underworld

The king had been banished to a far away land to subsist
like a monk in a beehive cell eating fish and bread

and on those days the son hurting from his absence followed
the good knight out into the fields like a squire learning

to keep the land alive, opening and closing water gates
using a spade to redirect the flow into green pastures

peeling a sharp eye for black snakes, beheading them
with one quick downward thrust of the gleaming shovel blade

unquestioned judge and executioner
in defense of home defense of family

and though the afternoon sun baked
all the energy from my body and drops of sweat

striking the ground failed to turn
the cement hard alkali flats into beanstalks

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