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Passing
the Dark Time of Year - CB Follett In
winter darkness, old men gathered themselves and
drank and drank of summer. A
fellowship of wine makers from
almost anything but grapes. Charles
used parsnips from his garden, and Hank picked
dandelions, those huge ones that grow out
in country, left alone to blossom and ripen. No
small child cajoled to rip them out, as I once was. Roger
used thistles – he liked a challenge – and
so it went, each to his own vinous horticulture. Old
wives flapped their aprons and clucked but
bottles of dusty bouquet grew in pantries, the
hall wardrobe, barns and tool sheds. And
when winter came, and women went to quilt or
chat, old men gathered to sip and assess and
get tipsy, then roaringly drunk, happy in
each other’s company, and the usefulness of harvest. The
women were unsurprised, heading up lanes toward
home, to see husbands disheveled and ruddy, weaving
toward them, down the same paths. Sometimes
one would be found lying in a snow bank or
planked out where the corn once stood – the wine acting
as rural-antifreeze. Men would haul him to
his feet, rub snow in his face, punch him all over to
wake the fool to consciousness. Dandelion wine, not
the sport of kings, but of hard working farmers, herders
or the local doc with his four in hand. Last
summer goats came to weed the thistles, thus
sparing the soft muzzles of horses. Roger had
already picked his crop. His granddaughters had
made all the powder puffs they could manage: time
for goats; their rounded eyes and silly beards. CB
Follett is the author of 9 books of poems, the most recent OF GRAVITY
AND TIDES
(2013), and several chapbooks, most recent is WIND ROSE (2014). AT THE
TURNING
OF THE LIGHT won the 2001 National Poetry Book Award. She is
Editor/Publisher
of Arctos Press, and was publisher and co-editor (with Susan Terris) of
RUNES,
a Review of Poetry (2001-2008). Follett
was Poet Laureate of Marin County, CA, USA. (2010-2013) |
