fugue

this fugue by Bach imagines an uphill walk

every leg muscle fraught

and yet all I do is walk across level lawn

to the corner by the path with step ladder climb

up and tie a rope around stunted pine

I feel my senior lethargy in my slow measured gait

slow and steady wins the race

I say to myself

like the turtle under carapace

back and forth now with chain saw from Sears

this from J’s father so many years ago first

cut a notch eggplant size to aid in the felling

& then start the cut see all the ladybugs on

this bark startled by the vibration cut until the chain misaligns

goes rogue

like a friend bootlegging Drake’s latest anti-dance demo

so I sit with wrench & re-align & get back to it

until it’s time to pull the rope and watch

the needled life thud on the brown grass

& then on to the clean up

put pine cones in a bin and start cutting off branches

until the chain slips off again and again

sit and fix             sit and fix

these small octothorpe blades hashtag my father’s fingers

thick with work in back garden singing Verdi and then come in

oh he loved his thick milk

soured whole milk and vinegar

with spare ribs or cucumbers

oh tastes of childhood

he probably never did what I did next

pushing the trunk off the stump & falling over onto my nose

scratching wrists up to elbows

probably paperback karma

for depriving the birds of one more tree

oh peristeronic crime

oh uphill Bach-like climb

oh this life