Umberwood

by Gaetan Sgro
Blueline

My father’s word
for tree-trapped
breeze released on summer eves
back home
some hilly northwest exurb
all split rail and
field stone
dependable as dusk

Along the Horseshoe Trail
you grew up
knowing trees
how to pick a branch
for climbing
how to stretch
the daylight thin

At nine I crashed
a wheezy jeep
scattering geese
on a frozen pond

Picture ice tracks
in a field of withered husks   
everything was horizon

A Wyeth landscape, vast and quiet
ink-thin branches in tempura
sky, wisps of wood
smoke twisting

In neighboring fields the thump
of redcoats riding
hounds mad with fox
most Sunday mornings

And slate black nights
lines down, stars out
spent listening
to wind shake glass
from frozen pines.

That day in the jeep
I crossed an old ruin
clean spine and smooth
stones scattered
asleep in a blanket of brush

Now that’s the way
to leave a place.