The sweat gleaming on the hairs
Of my stomach. Two miles
South of the gravel pit
At White Rock, and there's nothing
But my own breath going out
Among these stones. Where is the tooth
My grandfather unearthed here,
The mastodon molar as big and brown
As his gnarled fist? Or the rock
I heaved on the harmless bull snake,
And the light burning that day
Off the stones? As a boy
I used to go silent for days,
Trying to hear how the earth sounds
To the dead, and heard the huge
Silver tumbler in the cellar
Grinding the stones day and night
Until they came out gray
With sludge and needed washing
Under the hose. Now there is nothing
But the earth at White Rock
Lying open like a grave,
With just enough light to gather
My stones. Soon the winds will come,
And the first martins flying
For the night into the bottomlands,
The heat lightning a mile out
Over the flood plain.
And the long walk up County O,
Following those three stars
That come full circle to bless
The thorn bush I darkened with blood,
And the old Baptist cemetery
Where the Swedes of White Rock
Lay down in the winter of '39,
My grandfather among them,
And found home in these stones.
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