BRIAN TEARE

As if from Letters of Surveyor Samuel Maclay
(Spring, 1790)

                         sent for you last week    dogwoods
a swansong    white flowers
                         on whitewater    weather continues

~

cloudy but little rain    intelligence

                         with its attendant circumstances
embarrasses me much    no word

~

                         from something to do    patience
exhausted    dear    shaved myself

                         and then returned    the word

~

pluvial    the maple a map

                         of the river's tributaries    rinsed
glistening province of inquiry

~

                         my black nets set past cattails
dredge drawn up    leaves

                         alluvium    grasp and clatter

~

of crawfish    all hunger

                         could gather    this morning I saw
a deer fording the river

~

                         to a small island    I felt unable to work
full proof    having nothing

                         the mind destroys everything    careful

~

the world is

                         the river brims    first the few
roads go

~

                         under    but this is a letter    weather
the shine of water on nouns

                         let it be remembered

~

I made a plum pudding

                         in a bag    as fine a one as I ever ate
this with a dish of tea

~

                         concluded the month of May    obliged
to spend the morning baking

                         bread    things    I admire their industry

~

water folds the arms

                         of a host of brown coats    shine worn
whitely into each elbow

~

                         I write I fancy I hear canoe poles

returning    this not only keeps me
                         uneasy for the moment    but in pain

~

                         in consequence    as I am in want
of word    I imagine your letter    corn

                         stubble troubling the flood fields

~

no geese riding the river's stir

                         and fervor    what you sweep from
the porch    pine needles    berry

~

                         stains    click of seed    husks    things
birds leave I leave you too

                         and send what facts I can    sunken road

~

refracted    bent branch made heavy

                         with wet    black bark a clot of leaves    flood
plain and waterline    my loneliness

~

                         a season when the bank's given the river
rising everything it had    here I am

                        in country unsettled without either

~

canoe or horse    a field remarkable

                         for the great number of bones found
in it    I write to report

~

                         they all appear in good humor  

   Contributor's notes
   Lent Prayer
   Introductions: A Reading Loop

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