which the water flowed. The cabin in the distance seemed prisoner to mist while a rainbow gathered its wits for the next performance. Nowhere did leaves intrude though a fly made headway up a glass pane embedded in wood like antidiluvian plants have been known to seek amber. In their chorus, other flies droned then ran up & down the ledge. In the iate sunshine of the day, a bastardized vision of dirt farmers, pioneers imprisoned in similar toil. 67 Back to the Contents Page 

 

ROGUE AND PRIVATEER

The Squirrel, a corsair, rides the wind black arm of a pressing sea, Tribal hostilities finished, she slinks into port. Traveling lightly across open ground, a squirrel upends a brigand sapling. Grappling the ragged ends of a thicket with riggings shredded by heavy wind and storm, the arboreal sloop ascends to the highest mast; a bush re-taken, the Crow's, Nest reconnointered. 68 Back to the Contents Page 

 

THE CAMERA CAGE

As a child, all common sense decreed pirates wore dear teeth -- enamel white, with tusks to rout an elephant (the result from eating carrot sticks, I was told) -- not a solitary doubt clutched my mind ivory mingled naturally with black cord and sash in the brain's Bluebearded eye. Then, it was so matter of fact like taking sausage to bed, saying a proper good night for the wisdom of the mother-provider was similar to a pirate chief. The let-down came in advanced picture book form, childhood crisis accelerated on seeing Kidd brain a member of his lusty crew but the upstart taking the beating was toothless and sore no arcanely romantic rake at all, more like a strange woman in the park with whom no one dared to speak. 69 Back to the Contents Page 

 

FENCE LINE

That Captain Kidd scribbling of rock in the fields yellowed bristle of pages back of a farm where piratical breaking of land knocks clean holes in the soil, gypsy dancers vernal growth before a spy-glass hour moon. And black print smudged on a thumb, a child's glossary of tales thick with terror before the faceless wretch crawls for grog, his peg-leg in step with one part of my brain Old Phew hardly any Smee from Peter Pan but the holocaust -- the raven in the tree eyeing the baby Treasure Island, that fledgling reason butchering both nostrils at the skunk cabbage whose nectar is the prize of cemeteries & wild reunion of the bees. 70 Back to the Contents Page 

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