Twirl and spin

This is another one influenced by a TV show, I know, I'm so... something. The show is Deadwood, the episode the penultimate one of season 2. Whereas one might possibly be able to argue that watching West Wing is required for much of my versicals, I don't think the same could be said for this, at least I think I hope not.
The episode is particularly poignant because a child has died, but a sense of release or relief of build-up of anxiety is common in the series, which is full of feuding, strategising and blood. The music at the end of each episode somehow reflects this sense of release and as with all the HBO stuff, the soundtrack to the credits and show is as good as the dramatic content. As befits the mid-late 19th century American gold-rush setting, the melodies are blue-grass, country, folk etc., all of which are right up my alley missis. The episode in question ends with 'Hey Willie boy' by Townes Van Zandt - Great. It seems interesting, maybe, that some of the lyrics are:

Hey willie how you gonna feel
When the leaves turn gold
Beneath your heels
Twirl and spin never gonna fall
Fallin just won’t do at all
No that wouldn’t do at all

- which I only realised after I'd written the bit about falling. Er, probably not all that spooky at all.

These were the original first two stanzas of the poem but I decided to jettison them:


there was a wooden prairie house
and what with the bonnets and all
we moderners may have thought
how quaint and primitive.

a psalm, numbered, catalogued,
the word, given forth as by town crier
and the preacher man stood back
almost losing his footing.

- There are echoes of my other stuff, 'soul forgotten', 'core of the earth' plus my seemingly never-ending theme of The Past and how life was... cheaper? Something like that.

I often/ usually pen the title then the poem but this time I added the title at the end (just now in fact), having forgotten about titles.

I recommend the TVS song - Unfortunately I couldn't find an original (i.e. by the man himself) version on iTube but...

Oh and in case you're in wonderment, yes, the 'sole' - 'soul' thing is deliberate. What a saddo.

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Wood and Water


we were shown the bubbling brook
beneath booted feet, sprung forth
around the sole and later a man
scaling a wooden stair, cradling a child.

in those days things were different
in those days men were men younger
child and adult, never the twain,
teenless times and more mortality.

why were we shown the water
seeping and gurgling from the earth?
because atop the stair a question is answered
on the landing breath is caught, stock taken.

the water is shallow and the landing is slight:
the surface; the soul forgotten
all the while the climb of the stair
and the surging of the earth's core.

the volcano eternal and ancient
gradual and emoting, profound
beneath surface tension, way beneath,
leading up to the trickling seam of future.

loss of foothold is not perilous
slipping up, bowled over by
things close to the face of the planet
emanating irresistibly, sucked in we are.

sucked in we are drawn out
layers, rings as in the redwood
and the man who carried the child
his love was in the centre of the trunk.