Morning Work on the Landing

A poem by Verandah Porche
for Larry Sherman & Mark Sherman (1976-2013)

Dawn, the chickadees kick in.
Father and son are glad to be
Done with farming for nothing:
24/7 starving to death.
And zero ain’t so bad when
You’re dressed for it. 

The grapple holds aloft
A log longer than the man
Who felled it, snow on the bark.
The loader will never tuck this
One in the truck bed, and the son
Won’t snug it with his bar. 

Gazing back, the father grins:
This painting is right on the money:
The red hat, the blue cab,
The shadow they stand in
Between fell and grapple.

Everyone’s life is a book, he adds.
What leaves his son won’t turn
Let’s overlook,
Like this valley or the empty
Mountain Dew not littering
The forest floor.

Morning Work on the Landing, 2010. Watercolor on paper. © Kathleen Kolb