Walt McDonald, _4 poems

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Grandfather's Ranch after Wars
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My brother clicked his tongue
to make hot horses trot. Across the pasture
the wagon bounced like a churn
Grandmother pumped with both fists down,
down, to beat gold butter out of cream.

I held tight, bounced by my brother's back,
our wagon about to shatter, the butts of both
big geldings massive, leg muscles bulging.
If either raised a tail, we'd be done for,
bumping above the ground behind them,

hooves flicking sand and thistles in our eyes.
All that, decades ago, both horses hauled off
to the buzzards' trough, that arroyo
where Grandfather tossed his trash.
My brother bombed Japan by starlight,

bouncing at night above fireballs,
crash-landed a thousand yards off Guam.
Only two of his crew survived.
Never talks about war, farms half
of Grandfather's ranch. He can't stand cows,

sells maize and alfalfa to me. After Saigon,
I keep my half of the windmills spinning
and tighten the barbed-wire. Nights,
I pump iron to make old muscles hard,
something to do while our horses rest.

Porch lights come on at dusk, switch off
at dawn like gunshots. I lock both doors,
shut drapes and pull the barn doors down.
My wife and I raised babies on these plains.
They're scattered tonight around the world.

We rock on the porch and wonder
if our daughters will call tomorrow,
if the toddlers are ready for bed, if our son's
helicopter in Bosnia is out tonight
under a thousand of miles of stars.

.................................
Uncle Oscar and Montana Taxidermy
.................................

After Guadalcanal and Guam,
Uncle Oscar backpacked to Montana,
his shack a cabin he built himself,
peaks above every window. Sundown,
he whittled birds from fir,

humming old gospel songs
while Aunt Martha rocked.
Uncle Oscar said heaven
would have Montana silence,
wild, but without wars,

trout in the skillet and snow
and huckleberries grizzlies eat.
Ranchers brought him moose to stuff,
cougars and bighorn rams,
wolves the rangers let them track,

lobos that attacked their cows, and once
a grizzly that killed a jogger
in Glacier Park. Uncle Oscar combed
the soft and tawny pelt, fine hairs
around the eyes, saved the hump

and every muscle. The hunter said
make her fierce, and Oscar propped her
that way--wide jaws, one paw raised high
with claws sharp enough to rip a heart
or offer a handshake like a dog.

.................................
When Father Went Off to War
.................................

We stuffed old rags and towels
under the door and into window cracks,
and dirty clothes that froze.

Any blue winter, Mother feared we might freeze,
she told us later when we were twelve,
when the war let her work for a stove

and clothes, more than beans and bread.
We knew we were cold in the 'thirties,
but never lost a toe like Billy's folks,

a mile farther out, without a fence
to keep their chickens in. My twin brother
worried if the chicken we caught

was theirs, too far away to ask, half-frozen,
the skinny rooster's eyes like fish scales.
When Father sailed off to war

and came back without a leg,
the VA gave him a wheelchair and a bed
in Abilene, the nearest free clinic.

My brother and I saw him once,
and Mother came back on the bus days later
with his clothes and wedding band.

She stayed until the casket came
and a soldier with a flag gave her
a stiff salute, and then he too was gone.

.................................
In Far Montana Mountains
.................................

At four, I wandered out with coffee
in the dark. The moon made Montana darker.
Whatever stalked or scuttled along could see.
If grizzlies in the forest watched, they saw.

I paced the deck and scanned the mountain horizon,
nine ice-capped peaks that looked so far,
no clouds that night, no snow. Years before,
our youngest child left home. After a third refill,

I sat on the swing and rocked, the chains so cold
they clicked. In all those nights when I rose to write,
I never heard bears. Sometimes the hoot of an owl,
wolves down the valley, a cry, but far away.

That year so long ago, before the cancer, my wife
could sleep all night under four or five wool blankets,
before she rose and opened the screen door softly
to share another dazzling dawn.

.................................
Walt McDonald
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