Poetry |

“Gunfire”

Gunfire

 

Three gunshots in rapid succession killed the silence

of the woods. I froze, reminded in that instant

once again: We are at war. This is the front line.

Dodging nettles, my wife and I had hiked a steep path

to the bottom of the gorge for a closer view

of a wall of columnar basalt across the creek

rising a hundred sheer feet. I must have shrieked.

My wife made no sound. As if shot herself, she dove

in a thicket of wild rose and curled into a ball.

Their thorns, I saw, drew specks of blood

from her bare arms. We’d come down the gorge

to see the thunderbird, our name for the rock form —

columns fanned in a pattern impossible not to imagine

as tail feathers on the lower half, flared wings

higher up the wall, and higher still a great crested head

in the eroded stone. The creek has undercut the wall;

thus, the thunderbird appears to hover in the air

above a pool as if weightless, as if just lifting off.

Somehow we had failed to hear the jeep with its huge

muddied wheels and a tattered Confederate flag

attached to its antenna. How they managed to crash

through the brush to our quiet world

we could not puzzle, the jeep’s engine muffled

by the shush of water washing over stones,

the sigh of light wind in the crowns of pines.

Two young men — bearded, necks and arms tattooed,

their faces marked in army camo — turned to us,

saw my wife cowering in the thicket, then fired

more rounds at the thunderbird, the reports echoing.

I waved my arms. Hey! Please stop! We’re leaving.

The one in a khaki shirt emblazoned with Semper Fi,

his face a mask of black and green stripes,

came over and said without looking at my wife

huddled still in the roses, So what’s her problem?

I said something about us being frightened

by their gunfire, he replying that they’d quit shooting

for a few minutes if we chose to leave. Your call, he said.

I remember the red droplets on my wife’s arm

as we hiked out. She daubed them with a tissue.

Pale, shaken, she said nothing the entire way

to our car. I’m not sure I spoke. I remember

doing what I always do: play back the scene,

wishing I’d said Hey, asshole. How about we stay.

How about you and your buddy climb back in the jeep

and leave. I wanted to tell them, for all the good

it would do, to take their fucking guns and go

fuck themselves. I’d never have said it. They had guns.

What was there to say? How could I explain the majesty

of those black basalt radials patched with orange lichens

or ask them to notice in the seams those nameless

blue flowers clinging impossibly to the sheer wall?

Look there. Can you make out the flared stone wings?

Can you picture the immense body

of some mythic bird sent to us from the sky?

How explain the wonder of ancient lava,

its five-sided columns uplifted in such a way

as to suggest cathedral or, directly before us,

great feathered being? Or on the cliff top

above the hovering thunderbird, could they

not imagine the stand of hemlocks as a solemn

green-robed choir of lonely saints witnessing

our encounter? That day, I said nothing. That day,

I didn’t tell the bearded men what they could do

with their guns. I’ve waited till now to tell them.

I’ve waited till now, for all the good it will do, to explain.

Contributor
Edward Harkness

Edward Harkness is the author of three poetry collections, most recently The Law of the Unforeseen (2018, Pleasure Boat Studio). He lives in Shoreline, Washington.

Posted in Poetry

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