Building Fence

My brother, my son, they’re setting
jack posts, stringing wire in high wind.
I come after, pounding staples in good
pine wood.  We follow the edge of the jack pine
where the foothill opens out to long drop
after drop of tough grass sliding down
the Front Range.  We know it’s a fine day,
a rare day, our banter raucous, intent,
tossed to the wind.  We’re cold, hungry,
but set to get the work done.

My brother could always get something
done.  Rebuilt that old Chevy he’d
broke down right to the screws.  First
day he had it working, he gave our dad
a ride on the chassis, scattered gravel
as they chugged the road.  Then my brother
learned to put people back in their bones
whole, when before they’d only been
painful parts.  And his fishing is legend.
He taught that to my son.

My son could catch fish in the clearest
waters, enough to feed the whole bunch
hunkered down to plates and forks.  Early,
he built a whole from parts—heard people’s
scattered stories, wove the fragments
together.  Then, his listeners could hold
their present in the hands of their history.
And very young, he wanted to know of earth,
of lives lived on it.

When I drive the old road in sight of
that fence, now, I know that another
fine day, rare day, there’ll just be
my brother ahead of me setting posts.
I don’t know a reason my son should die
a young man before he could get done
what he wanted.  I only know to thread
that day’s green needles through me,
bring back what we all got done together
one wind-loud day on the Front Range
looking east, never worrying west.  More than
two hundred staples that day to my credit.  No count
for my loss to grass.