[UNTITLED]
Bear Kirkpatrick
Ob say Increase Darrow burn the land to make orchards. He wake at dusk and walk at odd bearings along the suns rising and move his hands by a quick jerk motion what shoot bright seeds of fire down off his person. The tinder quicken and shorn needles smoke and pop into flame clear as water against the sun and rise into the brush and dead limbs and blowdowns. Great hackmatack and pine and catspruce stand upon the ground what hold them fast and rage inside an orange mantle what roll above the canopies toward the ocean. From the ground rise the deer and moosedeer and coonies in panic to run downwind as they must before the heat and smoke and snare themselves in wires he set out for them. Above the trees the hoppers and stinks buoy and draw kestrels and merlins and hawks down from the heavens and close enough to fall by his shot. The fire run itself out onto the ocean rocks and the earth cool enough to let him walk back among the burned up trees to find the animal bodies he lay open and cut meat from below the scorch and lay the strips out and the hide. The best feathers he pull for his dress and mail for his pants and down for his blanket. He fill a bag with charred rosehips he split open and scrape the seeds upon a flatstone he leave out in the sun for that reason. The burned stumps he drag into piles to burn as nightflares against the big cats all through the blizzards to come. Stones he part for walls and turn spans into furrows. He rest upon his heels and watch the seeds rise along their stakes in rows set lengthwise to the sun and feed off the char and leech in the ground. So the lightning hit trees we find in the orchards not so much the charge come down on the bolt but what already inside the trees the storms and winds draw out as fire.
Ob veer into Frying Pan by the orchard road what lay ahead as two mud tracks in the snow. Gorbys and crows far down gather about somewhat and take to the air and beat for the far off pines. Ob count rows and veer up an uphill aisle between Macintosh and Cortland trees. The backend walk some against the hill and deeper snow and a cloud of hagsmoke Ob jet from his nose when he straighten up near the top as the hill fair out at the wide crest. The heavens press down upon us and drop the world away from the lightning hit trees what stand black and crooked and lit up by the sun what smoke frost on them. The bark long ago curl off to leave an underskin smooth as a thing born but dead with a hollow middle Ob say one day last summer we up here. Another time Ob say any tree might fall in a river come to look the same as them or any tree fall and catch upon rocks where the tide can rush against and back. Or any tree grow out in a dry open place have the skin barked off by wind and sand. Other trees lay down flat before giant waves he say. Another live in some other part of the world and grow sideway to the wind and cross the land as somewhat bent on creeping. Another tree they find grow on the other side of the world live all its years underground and bloom inside the dirt and pollinate by ants crawl among tunnels between flowers. Ob say some trees dont count as trees anymore but as somewhat might come already to somewhat else upon the earth.
The black trees stand to either side and clear the row ahead to run straight toward the break downhill and the field below and beyond them the trees of Moab and the far off pines and the ocean a sliver what take on the heavens color as water risen into the whatall lay above us. Ob raise his knees for a tap against the two hags he light and hand one over and set back. Ob say its here or its almost here or soon enough it will be here. Aman can tell it by the bluer color rise off the ocean. The blue what bleeds up into the heavens. The red upon the branch tips of the maples after we turn away.
Ob pinch our hag ends together and slip them out the foley and touch the gas. The crest break and we ease slow down the hill the snow hush the tires and motor and make a floating Ob touch the wheel easy to steer against and laugh some. Eitherside to us the treelimbs break apart and catch together and break apart in the light. We come out into a field the wind blow clean of snow and cross it and take an aisle into Moab and back to Fountain where we leave off.
Ob stand upon the snow and listen to the far off buzz saws come from over to August. The motors race a spell and then cough and idle low. Ob want to tell me somewhat about them but dont but move himself by stepping into the tree to pull cut branches and suckers out and drag them to the aisle middle. Sometimes he use the pole saw hook to fetch what he cant reach but mostly he step into the tree to reach for what cut ends I hand down to him to pull out.
Ob tell me keep still.
Ob step sideway about the tree to see it through and crouch to set the heavens behind for a backlight. Every tree he do this for and might say one more here or there or wave a hand to say we move on to the next tree in the row. Ob can walk upon a tree nobody prune for years and step round its skirt and walk into a place he can make cuts without making them but still see them and so can put himself in two places. He walk about the tree in the snow and crouch in one place and put cuts back and make them anew in another by his seeing. When talk come he make a third. Talk about the tree before him or the tree within his looking keep him still in two but about anywhat else put him into a third but he need to move his body to get there.
We open trees by cuts to their limbs and so let the sun and air into the middle. Take saws to branches what grow inward and not outward toward the light. What clumps gather about a scar or windbreak or any snarls or festers we thin. Any limbs grow too upright and bunch among the others we can tie stones upon them by cords and weigh them as with anchors so they better grow sideway. Any roots we might prune by a ground discer run about the tree and trunks we score and ring by hand. Abenchtop machine chop the youngest trees in half for us to swap their bottoms for anothers top and their tops for anothers bottom and press the joint tight and run tape and smear a wax about the wound and plant them all to grow up just fine. We can buzzsaw fullgrown trees through their trunks and by summer find a dozen shoots rise out the stump or the nearby earth from its roots. Cut a scaffold limb and find three newyear shoots take its place. Cut a trees central leader and find six or seven more come up. But what about Lamb Eddie lose his foot in half to a saw?
Ob squat to backlight the tree and make cuts and put some back.
The saw jump and the cut happen fast and clean with a new blade and sharp teeth. No tears or pulls or rips. The blood come out for a cleaning but find nowhere to stanch because the edges so sharp and clean.
Ob back out the seeing place and take up the pole saw he reach the blade inside a snarl and nod at me to duck beneath the canopy with the handsaw and climb the trunk.
Tuthill want to sew the fallen half back on and wash the sawdust off in a sink because what blood but mostly water? But a week later Lamb Eddie get out his bed and fall straightaway to the floor. Man have to run his hands about the sheets to find the foot half dead and already black. And naught grow back as a new foot. Skin just cover the place same as to give up.
Gretchen lose an eye to an infection but do she grow somewhat in its place?
The gas fire take Gagnons skin. Run him out into the sun as a man set on craziness but what it give him back?
The sun cut down near to the far off pines and already drag the chill in upon us from out the timber. Ob stand upon the stone wall at the row end to piss over the other side and come back to hang our saws and take us cross rows to the orchard road we take through the low place between Fountain and Spring.
Chub catch a sleeve and trap his arm in the cider press but do he grow a new one and shed the old cripple one?
Ob step through the cattails and reeds to the ice he test by a boot and a crabwalk out upon the open and wave his arms to bid me cross behind him. The ice at the bank crack as it thin among the stalks what make open collars about them Ob point out to me. The orchard road through Spring to the Five Corner we take indian file into Tilton after Ob look up and down the road first and squat at the orchards low end to look for Oxeye Daisy. Our bootprints Ob shuff out by hand and take us cross the stone wall into the timber. Snow pile up deep in the hack and spruce and hush the world all save the far off buzz saws. An owl somewhere above us purr near the same pitch as the saws and so close Ob dont hear it or look up. The crossed limbs hang long snow catches as bouys and dark undersides. The heavens might peek through. The land rise slow to a new place where the great trees fallen over and tear up rootballs of stones and dirt the size of the flatbed out the earth and lay upon their sides or stack crossway and prop each other in their falling at angles. We crawl beneath great trunks and knit fingers to make catches for each others boots. Ob climb into a second place and come back to how the trees rise out the ocean as man done as Increase Darrow tell him they do. The ground dish and make a yard for where moose gather through night and leave their hoofprints and torn up places and saplings they chew the skin off and great piles of shit berries Ob kick at. One moose trail go our way but Ob veer off it and walk us out the dish to where the land break downhill through mostly catspruce Ob snort about the piss smell. We come out behind the barracks where the metal roof slant backway and drop enough snow to pile taller than Ob and make him roll against it angleway and come about the side but take him halfway cross the open yard before he hear Amos singing. Ob touch an ear and nod at my nod and step crouchway and turn sideway through the sumacs what press tight up against his belly and drift snow down upon us but Ob dont figure any on the wind at our backs. We come out the sumacs and around the ice cream truck and Amos dont even look up. Ob say naught but light hags and mark Amos set on a bucket and a board laid cross his knees and a bag of fertilizer open beside him. Ob cross his arms and Amos use the butter knife to scrape orange grains out the fertilizer. Ob nod at me to say just stand there and nod again to say Amos not mad at me. Amos trowel orange grains onto the butterknife blade and raise them in trips to the scale pan where they pile. He read the weight and Ob take a step toward him. Amos scrape the grains off the pan and into a plastic bag Ob take and roll and squeeze the seam shut and put the whole inside his shirt pocket and turn us back the way we come and wave me on ahead cross the open yard and follow me backways with a sumac he break off and drag and swipe forth and back as a great tail all the way to the Quarters and turn and throw the sumac in the weeds.
Ob say okay.
Amos say the land drape upon stone without form save what great pines and hackmatack and spruce roll as a water from above. The trees fall away to a road set out by a reckoning fixed by the moons set and rise. The fields draw out by a team and bend the sun to cut the ground into furrows and clear spans. Walls and foundations and stones rise from the earth before the plow and after rain to set the land apart and upon which to raise a bed and shop and barn. Water and pumps rig in the lowest bellies for Grapevine Run and Cunner Burn to run outward in pipe branches and valves at every spur. Holes set in the ground by a dowitchers tale draw the clear water up from beneath the stone. Bees and rain and night and cool and heat and nitrogen and potassium and calcium. Handfulls of dust cast in every field show the wind and how the trees must run for pollen to carry down rows. The first young apple tree go into the ground upside down and all them afterwards go upside up in long rows. Increase Darrow call out their orchard names and give them Sanborn and Avery and Field and Tilton.
They come for me at night and creep into my room without lights and raise me into the dark and clothes they pick out and smear paste upon my cheeks and nose and forehead. They already hush before they come in downstairs at some noise what still them just outside the side door. Some clank or sough they turn by their faulty ears into a boot scrape or ice or somebody whisper their name. A story they call to mind before they can stop it. One of them open the side door but Obs smell come just before Amos on the draft through the wangan of tractor parts and farm signs to the back and up the stairs and into my room. They dress me in all woolens and run black tape about my zipper tab and button rivets and the lacehooks on my boots. Make me jump up and down for them to listen. Put my arms forway and backway. Ob check the stove and straighten the blankets on the cot and mark about the room and find a glass he can put in the wash tub and nod and wave a hand to say okay. We cross the Kings Cross onto the orchard road between Avery and Sanborn. Ob already ask me how my ears, my nose. Cold? You need a wrap? Amos stand at the window and dont move to say come on lets go, lets go.
A row we pass they dont smell Oxeye Daisy on or hear Emmetts truck on the Five Corner just before we cross but squat after me and make Ob breathe same as he about to run. Ob tell Amos what a sorry son of a bitchs motherfucker he be and Amos nod so Ob might hush sooner. June pass before the windows on the phone and Ob want to know and wave me toward the house but Amos grab my collar and point off down the road. The wood smoke they smell but take in as just chimney smoke from stoves but cant say why it aint oak or birch but apple come now til they mark the glow through the trees. Amos want to part up and take to the woods on either side but Ob want to know why nobody around but Amos want to know dont I hear anybody from over by the fire? Cant I smell any of them? Ob tell Amos they only bring me as look out but Amos say thats what I am.
But the smell everywhere, the herring smell they have mix in among the apple smoke and a dirt smoke and kerosene and somewhat else inside the kerosene come as sweet they buy at a store or somewhat they eat and come out their skin later.
Some awful shit no doubt Amos say.
Amos lead us to a break off the road and stop to wave me ahead but the woods are hard to say. Somewhat shy off but not much of anywhat big. Some noise come from the trees but only as a scratch against bark. A bird. A porcupine move away from us or just around the trunk or higher up to mark the fire better. A sound what fall back into the wind suck and crack the distant fire make. Ob wave us closer to a thicket we can mark through at the fire stand in the open on a cleared span of ground and taller than three men stand atop each other and hold to the earth by the twists of stumps and roots darker as limbs where the fire coolest upon the frozen ground and snow.
They want it for a backdrop Amos say.
Ob kick a hole through the snow and use his heel on the ground but get nowhere and Amos run a hand about in a circle and follow me to a spruce he can tuck the small plastic bag inside a crotch but what about the snow and their bootprints and hag ends and the piss Ob take?
Ob part from us at the Kings Cross road and Amos watch me ahead down the hill a spell before he turn up the road after Ob.
Amos say before wells but after bees Increase Darrow build a small house half underground he light by kerosene and heat by wood. Counters he raise along the walls to his navel and make them arm deep with troughs high enough to usher three hands of dirt. A forcing bed run off a radiant heater he convert from kerosene by a special bulb to mimic the suns light and heat and so keep any plant out of dormancy but grow and change nitrogen all winter and bloom twice a year. He plant rosehip seeds by the hundreds and mark them come true to seed by which he mean a seed rise into the same rose bush and flower and fruit as its parent. But do the blood and bile and humors matter for aught else? Increase Darrow leave the overheads on for weeks of days and cast them into darkness for weeks of nights and turn the heat up or fan cold air in from outside or make a coldness even on the hottest days by ammonia he run through a condensor and pipes to draw air from below the ground.
Amos say Increase Darrow tell him plants speak a kind of talk by what they take from the soil he can learn to read. An action which is a language not heard save by how they look in shape or color. By leaf texture or stem thickness. By shifts of soil acid and traces and calcium against the lime. What voice they need more of to speak their particulars. The language they must use to be so pressed. So harried. So threatened. A language they must change themselves so they can speak it.
Amos say Increase Darrow brush pollen from one flower to another at bloom by a china bristle. The flowers set and lose their petals and grow hips what swell and turn color and split open to offer him their seeds. He learn an apple tree have to make a fruit to make a seed and not the other way around as with man. The plants he reef from the dirt and toss them all outside onto the burn pile but the seeds he plant in new dirt he find a way to pipe water through to form less a ground than a slurry. He want to almost drown them for weeks and some go under and never open. He shut the water off and let the dirt harden and crack and give them no water for weeks and some more cave in and wither and go under. Is it upon this meddling the heavens take note? The overwrought plants bloom tired flowers for him to set again by his china bristle and suffer their seeds anew by storms he make of fans set out tandemwise to bore a cyclone down upon them and lay them out flat in their growing. Another storm he make by a coal burning electric conductor he can short by a switch to ionize the air and turn the charge about. Rain and high pressure. Cold and low pressure. Against his own devices Increase Darrow wear on his ileskins and fight to stand inside the storm and take all his body to harbor the plants the moment he need to brush their flowers with pollen. The new seeds he make live through new combinations of wind and light or dark and swamp and run their seeds anew through other heats and charges. And upon their new seeds he fan smoke inside the nursery and run a tape he make of the sound of fire burning through a forest. He boil an extract of dragonflies and pump their soapy chitin and larva smell inside. He catch snakes and let them loose inside and hang rotting skunks and birds from the overhead joists. He order bugs from other places in the world. He play tapes of monkey chatter and rockets and whale cries what sheer and click above our registers. He rig a motor on belts to a drum canister what turn against the foundation and send shivers through the nursery. He breathe his own grippe upon them and pay anybody sick to walk up and down the boards for hours and breathe on the new plants. He release spores from bolls and sacs and nematodes and fire blight virus and mites and aphids. He brush the new blooms with pollen from maples and linden and dandelion and oxeye daisy and skeint and meadowsweet and anywhat else he can find give off pollen. Generation after generation the young trees still run off central leaders. The flowers still open whitish and five petaled. The buds set a fruit what still grow small and hard. But now they start to lose their cyanide. The start to lose their bitterness. Now they start to turn their starch to sugar before they rot.