Two Poems by Bonnie Proudfoot
A brief history
Here is a hill, here is a trail,
here are shale rocks that crumble
into the earth when I step on them,
here canes of multiflora rose tug
at my legs, neck, face, arms,
here are two-toed tracks of deer
in clay, here moist heat hangs
in the valleys, autumn sun moves
behind the ridgeline before 3,
here stumps of chestnut trees are
wider than any living trees, here grey
squirrels hide in white oak branches,
here Louis Wetzel, born in 1764 on
the South Branch of the Potomac
resolved to kill as many Indians
as possible, here we step over
rusted steel pipelines, find crumbling
concrete pylons from drilling rigs
and gas wells, here trails cut by loggers
are lined with mountain blueberries,
tiny, sweet, and tart, here thick vines
of Virginia creeper and poison ivy hang
from the tree canopy like tightropes,
here Louis Wetzel was the first
to volunteer when it came
to hunting down Indians, here,
beside the trail I bend to pick up
a perfect flaked slate arrowhead,
under a blackberry bush, a fat
copperhead watches me
and never even flicks
its forked tongue.
Poet’s note: italicized sections from History of Wetzel County
*
All Who Stubbornly Persist
Praise wind, praise vultures on thermals,
the doe who steps out of forest shadows.
the peach tree that shouts pink, pink.
Praise the mother whose hands curl and shrivel,
who rages against the blade of time.
Praise the brave child who sits beside her,
massages her feet on the sofa at night.
Praise the clearcut lot next-door,
the scars and scabs of scraped earth,
chunks of trees, a few small shrubs, greening,
Praise the barn with its swinging door that seems
to cant into the hill, these tractors,
steel wheels rusting into the dirt.
Praise the mother who lets
her children go, trusting that
they will return in their own
time. No one thought the fox
would come back
given all these absences,
but guess what I saw
trotting along the road
by the light of the moon?
And did I forget
to look for joy?
Bonnie Proudfoot has published fiction, essays, reviews, and poetry in a variety of journals and anthologies. Her writing has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Her debut novel, Goshen Road, (Swallow Press, 2020) was named 2022 WCONA Book of the Year and was long-listed for the 2021 PEN/Hemingway. Her chapbook is Household Gods (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2022) Bonnie currently teaches part-time for the Department of English at West Virginia University.