Blow, Blow Thou Winter Wind, John Everett Millais (1892)

 

Ring Thunder Road

Four eagles carve the carcass of a cow.

Hunting is such hard work that scavenging

is a sweet option when you’re ravaging

this short grass prairie, virgin to the plough.

Healthy cattle are grazing everywhere

oblivious to their comrade near this road,

its cause of death?  Likely an overload

of snow, the North forcing its polar air.

For me hunting is just impassioned sport

but eagles, a matter of death or life.

Talons are scimitars, the beak a knife.

They wheel above us where the gods hold court,

able to spy a cock quailing in grass

where hunted, hunter, rooster and eagle pass.

Chinook

When a Chinook wind blows

down from the Black Hills’ knees,

it warms twenty degrees

and melts the prairie snows.

Badlands bask in the sun,

and blue jays’ hearts are lifted

where Cedar Butte lay drifted.

I go with dog and gun,

winded but wintry warm,

walking the draws and creeks

a pheasant hunter seeks

on my friend Huber’s farm.

Fargo lies deep in snow,

freezing or far below.

White River Crossing

“Rain on the just and the unjust.”

—Matthew 5:45

On the south-facing slopes

so infernally dry

the yuccas spear the sky,

and all the righteous hopes

of ranchers are in vain

for a grass-growing rain.

To the north-facing slopes

cling juniper and spruce.

Huge as a six-month moose

a twelve-point mule deer lopes

through the riparian wood,

and God sees it is good,

two worlds four miles apart

where I just left my heart.

Timothy Murphy, a frequent contributor to Commonweal, died on June 30 at his home in Fargo, North Dakota. His books include Very Far North (2002), Mortal Stakes and Faint Thunder (2011), and Devotions (2017). Requiescat in pace.

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Published in the March 9, 2018 issue: View Contents

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