by Joseph Farley
Source: Suckers (2004) p.37
Ducks herded to market
pad dirt roads smooth
with an army of flat webbed feet.
Children with small nets
on long bamboo poles
scrape the top branches of trees
catching cicadas.
The ducks ack in chorus,
pause at a water filled ditch
for a drink and a swim.
An old man makes wooden cages
from scraps too small for the fire,
He will bring them,
along with their occupants,
to sell at the market.
Gray ducks are shoved into a pen.
Money is exchanged.
A proffered cigarette
seals the bargain.
The cicadas are placed
one in each cage.
They never stop singing
while they live,
but such musical lives
can be short.
The farmer buys a cicada
for his grandson.
The child will laugh at the noise
and shake the cage
until its occupant is near dead.
Grandfather and parents
will smile and laugh.
The old man and his son
will celebrate a day's sales
with duck soup, duck's blood
and the unexpected treat
of underdeveloped eggs
still in the womb.
Night will fall and sun will rise
The world will sleep and wake again.
the old ways will continue
beneath the same sky.
just a different shade of blue-
no longer indigo on cotton or silk,
but the enamel of a tractor,
or the texture of cigaretter smoke
rising from a tired hand.
--------------------
The Spider
by Joseph Farley
Source: Suckers (2004) p.83
The spider
begins its web
in one spot
and as she spins
the web grows wider
until the silk
reaches the width
of the deer path.
A snort, a flash
of hooves
in the moonlight,
and it is broken.
The interloper
dearts
trailing threads
of silver.
-------------------
The Bamboo of the Mind
by Joseph Farley
Source: Suckers (2004)
p. 42
Available in print edition.
--------------------
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