Two Poems by M. Daniel McCrotty

Within the Turnip, 7/11/19

When Solomon and Si Crooker buried a kettle of Akalúa’s
ashes under a stone heap on Whitehouse Cliff, Si threw
a spring turnip on last as a parting sign. The two then descended
through a petrified river of scree but when both returned
to retrieve forgotten shovels they found the summit
shaded by full autumn colors, a new stand of oak flowered out
where the previous day berry bushes bloomed. Then both men
fell backwards through a hole into the core of a hollowed
turnip, its flesh their protection against spinning time,
and beyond its walls hung the tea-grey remains of Akalúa.
Si remarked If the Lord comes in fire, he’ll use folk’s ashes
to spread across new fields. Light poured through trees
grown in an afternoon, the once rock-strewn ground blackened
with aged humus; nearby sand slid gently away down the valley.

Sleep

My feet and hands began to twitch
and grow cold with the coming of sleep,
then first moments of dreams, lyrics
of Matty Groves and her father’s bugle horn,
the laying down of a pallet on the floor.
I saw moth dust below the porch light,
heard late night murmurs of neighbors
gathered around a fire then my head jerked
and I returned for a moment, could feel
the peacefulness of my chest unsteady
in the dark, and a lover’s hand stroking my forearm
soon became a flyrod on a warm afternoon alive
with a brook trout then splintered prism colors
sung across kitchen walls. It did not hurt.

M. Daniel McCrotty lives in Knoxville Tennessee with his wife Katherine. He received an MA from East Tennessee State University with a focus on Appalachian Poetry and his work has previously appeared in Louisiana Literature, Still: The Journal, Appalachian Heritage, and Foothill Journal among others