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The Descent
By Sophie Cabot Black Graywolf Press
Copyright © 2004 Sophie Cabot Black
All right reserved. ISBN: 1-55597-406-6
Chapter One
THE MOUNTAIN
Three men gather. To honor another who has died, To set a stone in his favorite meadow. They walk into mountains until coming to a field Where one man decides to sit awhile. Two men Continue up the watershed, speaking Of women and hay and how it has been too long Since the rains, even the elk have come down. When they get to the next clearing, the second man Climbs into a tree and falls asleep. He is tired And does not want to be with the other. Into the cold evening the third man rises, and the owl waits Until she can no longer. He holds his hands Over a fire he has built in the treeless North. He is thinking of the descent, all of it. HOLY At the cross of the cross Is the part that holds. Two roads Meet; after that is the work of continuing
On. Beyond intersection Lies departure, which is then to see What goes on without you, what
Does not go wrong. One tree reconciles Against another; arm over arm, A man across a woman in a contract
Of the one thing they know They do well, which is the beginning Of how one will soon leave The other. They cannot turn back For what they have made in the air Already discloses agreement, and
Is where many have stopped to rest. BIRTHDAY The tree becomes a sign I pass Of how it has gone on; branches that hold Up the first stars like waiting candles
Against the coming night. I have learned To live with less and less While the child in the backseat sleeps
Believing she is already home. Out of her hand falls one shoe, Her mouth is stained with whatever kind Of paradise she has wished for,
And something in my mind Darts across the road, a small animal Moving perfectly between tires As I look back to see nothing changed.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Descent by Sophie Cabot Black Copyright © 2004 by Sophie Cabot Black. Excerpted by permission.
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