There was another darkness, the snake’s
and the forsythia’s: root darkness. His mother said
it was what flowed through their flat rakes,
what splashed their spades,
the high-water rim of the dark earth rising
and left for good on their shovel blades.
shadows left on stones that had been underground
longer than the boy had lived.
Darkness made him feel he had never lived,
as if he were a small possibility,
a word waiting to be spoken,
curled microfilm, a seed.
He felt like a seed in a seed’s trance.
What would his father think of him, dreamy as clematis
floating off trellises? as seeds clinging
to each other like girls waiting to be asked to dance?
He crouched in the dark, earning his allowance,
wringing the necks of sheep sorrel
and chickweed, reaching for weeds
as if he were reaching into someone’s throat
and drawing out the veins.
There was no darkness to his father, only a dusk
that smelled of wallets, smoking jackets, evening trains,
of light kept to a schedule.
He used to imagine his father could force the light
before its time, cut it back to the crown
of its roots, bury it outside.
It was his father who opened the windows,
sun leafing through the blinds
like chicory or endive through the slats in a basket.
No one had ever died that the boy could remember,
his father kept everything alive.
Earth meant nothing to the boy but darkness.
What were their bodies but darkness,
pods of darkness that had not yet broken open.
His mother leaned over the porch rail watching her garden
as if she had just set it down by the handle
into darkness, breathing in deep the bitter teas
of turned-over peat moss. She liked to say
she was letting her garden steep.
The darkness was hers, he knew the darkness by her.
She pressed his hands down into the earth
till he dared dig out new growth when he wrenched out old.
“Your father hates to get his hands dirty.”
She rubbed the boy’s hands with soil, forced them
into the dirt. They weeded silently together,
left old roots to rot. The earth dried gray
on his fingers. In bed
he could still feel the dark earth rising to meet him.
“Root Darkness”, copyright 2002 by Christopher Bursk. Printed by permission of the author.
Christopher Bursk. Poet. Langehorne Manor, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. Dr. Bursk is the recipient of NEA, Guggenheim, and Pew Fellowships and the author of eight books of poetry. His work has appeared also in Georgia Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, Prairie Schooner, and numerous other journals. Christopher Bursk is a humanitarian, who has been recognized for his work with prisoners, the homeless, food banks, and women’s shelters.
©2004 Voices Underground
an Earthwork by Patricia Goodrich
www.patriciagoodrich.com
Email: patricia@patriciagoodrich.com
