http://2.paulhamill.com Just another WordPress weblog Thu, 28 Jan 2010 18:35:14 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en BARN STORY   A century and a quarter old or more, Its steep roof hangs from one long rough-sawn beam. Later extensions lean against the walls Like tired foals huddling to their mother.   Inside And out, it’s a geography of ventures Tried and used up: abandoned nesting boxes Line the top floor, sad curls ... http://2.paulhamill.com/?p=35 The world was full of monsters in those days --when isn't it?--but those made better tales: dragons, giant boars, and ladies whose gaze would turn men into statues that might be titled I'm Just Leaving, or Sure I Like Your Hair.    If all the local braves were gulped or glazed like pots, ... http://2.paulhamill.com/?p=30 I refuse to say intimate              for knowing where in the barn Shovels and burlap are piled           where snow melts first in the yard But now and then a patch               of the familiar has an aura.  Farmhouse outward, the embracing         widened; garden and orchard Dense with lives seen, scented,           inferred: mice, wasps, ... http://2.paulhamill.com/?p=27 Leaving the Farm   Adam and Eve had no ambitions.  But I, Leaving yard and garden behind for good, Sneak out with unruly perennials in hand: Wistful small ambitions, slow-paced Rural visions incurable as sinning,   Random as crocuses where the snow thins. The soul yearns to compete with its old harvests, Leans to ... http://2.paulhamill.com/?p=19 (In honor of the darkening season before Christmas: St. John the Baptist Church, Quincy, Mass., the 1950's.)   Time in this house was thick-woven, like the wool of the old workmen’s caps doffed in the dark for early Mass in early winter: spare Advent, purple over black, wax-and-wood smells, bump of heavy ... http://2.paulhamill.com/?p=13 When Shadrach left the furnace All Babylon was ablaze, Terrible and brilliant light Slashing and clawing from walls Of yellow brick, from palm fronds, From the high sun that echoed Jubilation.   The shafts leaped Down like beasts exalting in Destruction, yet also like Desire. His wife had begged him To bank his faith.   In her eyes, coals Were blown white by ... http://2.paulhamill.com/?p=8 And there were giants in those days —Genesis The perfect celebrity! —first famous through his death (which cost him nothing), then for the mischief at his birth, but never for an instant troubled by inner life! But this gets ahead of the tale... At the Farmers' Museum in Cooperstown, New York, the Cardiff Giant sleeps in a shed of barn ... http://2.paulhamill.com/?p=1