The Old Farm

I’m going back into the woods to find it.
I left it there a long time ago.

In the cow pond it might have splashed
the bottom mush tumbling approaching slowly pressing down upon it enveloping
it finally in a sodden clutch. The bream
would swim by and study it move on to find other things in the brush.

If it is not there I will look for it
near the pink salt lick worn down by time and rain and the curled pink tongues
of calves and yearlings
where I have to squeeze between barbed wire sags or draw lengths of it like a bowstring bristling silent with pinched deer and hog hair and crawl until the twang
against my back reminds me
it could be anywhere really:

In the culvert, in the gully flooded
with a hundred autumns buried three feet deep or more where roots plunge like ribs
of the dead creek. If I find it I’ll carry it
back out in my experienced hands dripping like a sponge and see how much it weighs
if anything.