Tim Kahl
The Mother of the Shadowgone
The split in the bark that runs up my side centers me.
It makes me think my line runs all the way back
to Yggdrasil even though I'm just a knotty oak
a stone's throw from the mountain. There's a few
bits of acorn growth this year and a sapling shaded
by the heavy limb. Those are the only ones who stand
beneath my reach. They follow. The rest are shadowgone
or stepped on by the travelers who come to gaze at
me naked. The farmers come to pat me down and
whisper into my bark's furrows. The one last week
brought his little bag of suet that he pasted into
the crag above my seam. He knelt and prayed,
and three hallelujahs later I could feel his shudder
rise up within me. He showed me mercy, and talked
to me all afternoon about the star people who came
to visit his fields, the dancing tomte in his barn
who spin plates on broom handles and sing about
the cycles of the moon. They teased him for
his powerful urge given to him by the Danes.
I wondered which one of my kin was standing
sheared and shaved as his dining room table.
I could enlist the help of the nisse to know for sure.
They would come to me at midnight for twigs and
acorns to make their dolls, and I might ask them
for this favor if my mind didn't always race into
the rift forming in the sky at that time when I saw
past and future lives come tumbling down—
prisoners and astronauts, playwrights and carnival
barkers, seamstresses and cab drivers, court
reporters and innkeepers, candy makers and
one-armed clowns—all of them felt like they
were my ancestors, my family of the future,
especially with the spirit of this little one
welling up inside of me. I felt endless. I felt all
the points on my leaves tingle. I shimmered.
I felt like the daughter of Yggdrasil ready to give
birth to a complicated scheme. But as always
the visions came and they went. By morning
I prepared myself for the whispering men.
So quiet after the break of dawn. I could hear
their footfall slowly plodding up the hill.
The whispering men were coming, but it was
not them. It was the woodsmen with their saws.
The Game of Crossing Guard
Listen for the wind's exclamation point.
Is this gust the great summation of the waves?
The next one could push the city into the dark.
All the downed lines mean the code of silence
is threatening to take over every room
and hold the core of the mind hostage. It flips.
It rolls. It ponders one of the towering oaks
striking the roof during its collapse.
The rain has been goading all the trees
to give themselves up. The soggy ground
gives way. The game of crossing guard is over
all because the wind is a wild hound knocking
over the things it meets. It gets excited by
the bare branches, such a tender mistress,
whom the steadfast take solace from,
where the sisters of divine light take shade.
The Grand Design of the Mane
I lost the part in my hair.
It had been moving around for years.
Some strands never knew which way
to fall. They didn't care for ritual.
The obedient ones called them out
as wild hairs. They stood accused
for their profligate ways, their
unintended disregard for rules.
I lost my part, but it had never
been straight. It felt like there was
a Civil War on my scalp, advance
and retreat. I could sense my
baldness widening into truce.
I could sense the will of every
follicle adhering to its natural state.
They fall down dead on the field of
play centered around the cowlick
like it was a heat vent on the ocean floor
where all life can trace its origin back.
Each hair is amazed in its separate
grace. All that is needed is a clear
map of the myriad arrangements.
But that is unattainable and I've
become suspicious of the simple.
The grand design of the mane is beyond
recognition. I steer a course through
the turbulence of fur and shag
and carry my comb into this New Dark Age.
Tim Kahl [http://www.timkahl.com] [https://soundcloud.com/tnklbnny] is the author of five books of poems, most recently Omnishambles (Bald Trickster, 2019) and California Sijo (Bald Trickster, 2022). He is also an editor of Clade Song [http://www.cladesong.com]. He builds flutes, plays them and plays guitars, ukuleles, charangos and cavaquinhos as well. He currently teaches at California State University, Sacramento, where he sings lieder while walking on campus between classes.
