Pine Bush Ticks

By David Harrison
 

In a landscape of stunted pines,
I am seeking out the past,
returning
for a memory
of my father.

Milkweed pods burst
in a sunlit clearing,
their seeds parachuting
on elegant white feathers.

I remember my father
with spray paint and glitter-
his hands nimble,
his artistry fine-
whole worlds coming alive
in the dried empty shells,
Christmas dioramas
on the stage-husks of a plant.

I’ve come to gather my own,
to recreate this ritual from childhood,
passing on a gift
to the children
who fill my days.

They all run ahead,
slowing only to wait
at each confluence of trails.
With a wordless nod of my head,
they know which way to go-
and are off again.

We reach the milkweed clearing
and wade in through the underbrush.
Our hands extend slowly,
and carefully pluck
the pods from the stem.

Back out on the path,
a simple question.
“What’s that?”
A finger pointing at my legs.

I look down to see Self-locking lids.
Long, narrow chutes.
But always,
their innovations are undone.
The tenants of Racadau
do not want the bears
to stay away.
They leave the gates and lids
open on purpose.
Some just set their bags
alongside the dumpsters,
saving the bears the trouble
of climbing in and out.

Bureaucrats threaten
to have the bears captured,
sold to zoos and circuses.
They come to inspect,
shake their heads
at the open dumpster lids,
make notes
on their officiously-held clipboards.
But each time before they leave,
they look up just once,
and see those faces,
the color of concrete,
staring at them,
daring them
to take their bears away.
These city officials and wildlife managers
remember Ceausescu
in that façade of stone faces,
and see
that the people of the tenements
have nothing to lose
but these bears.

Their recommendations
get lost or set aside.

* * * * *
There is an old expression
some still remember
from their grandparents:
“A forest without bears-
it’s empty.”
In Racadau,
it’s true of the city as well.
dozens of deer ticks
crawling slowly up my pants,
seeking an opening of flesh.

We are all covered.

Without thinking,
we pick the ticks off one another,
grooming ourselves
in a tender, mammalian circle.

* * * * *

It is only later,
that night,
with the pods spread out
on a table to dry,
that I wonder about the ticks.

Why had they come to us
in such numbers,
like none of us
had ever seen before?

Are they the protectors
of that ancient landscape,
so fragile and besieged?
Were they the symptoms
of an ecosystem mutated
and desperately out of order?

Threshold guardians,
were they issuing a challenge,
probing our resolve
to enter this enchanted place?

Or were they sent for me?

A punishment for estrangement?

A warning
about the dangers
of seeking out the past?

A reminder
that you can get sick
going back this way?

Whatever their message,
alone in bed that night,
my fingers discover
what might be a tick
in a place I cannot see,
sucking blood
from my soft dark places.

My wife and son are gone,
and there is no one here
to help me
with the delicate task
of discovering
and extracting
what’s imbedded
deep inside of me.
 

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