Today's poem is by Forrest Rapier

Disturbed Mud
       

I.

        Reckless drums pound buckskin beats
inside the headstrong horseman
        riding under shadow of no moon.
Embers steady, then flare like blue
        cornfields untended for a season.
Two decades of snow on his face & he still doubts

        the springtime predictions written-in-corollas
on the firstborn foal's bloody forehead.

II.

This summer, he has hacked every outskirt azalea bush
        & whispered gratitude to the fog obscuring his scent.

He rows a loaded boat of white azalea upstream,
        whorls old songs from his young lungs & pulls

the pine oars shoreward. He hauls the woven wreath
        to Grandfather Pond where roe fawns graze on sweetgrass.

III.

        He will grow to know an ambush by the disturbed mud,
a trail of saw palms beat-back by dull hand-axes.

        Nude rivals crouch behind that mossy log.
He traced their footprints, obvious like fox fur
        pressed in yesterday's sleet.

Hush—they will cut off our hair
        if we fall asleep.

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Copyright © 2023 Forrest Rapier All rights reserved
from As the Den Burns
Texas Review Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission