Need Not
I need not fly
I fold my wings
I bow my head
I wait for things
I need not feel you
Everywhere
I need not breathe
In so much air
I need not listen
When you don’t call
I need no wisdom
I need not fall
I need not want
To know you well
I need not need
You at all
* * *
Long-handled Shovel
You’re going to need a long-handled shovel.
It’s what you do.
She is still warm.
The other ducks are quiet today.
The roots you injure on the way down,
Pungent watery sweet as death,
In the blacker dirt,
You’re going to need a long-handled shovel
And the force of your heel,
And the weight of your body,
______And soul
To dance into the turf,
To hit the wet clay,
Tight, and sliding, light light gray,
And to remind yourself
To not dig so slowly,
Nothing has to be perfect,
Looking for three feet, straight sides
Clean, cold floor
Where animals won’t be tempted
To go
For her perfect harlequin feathers, still warm,
Her eggs forever bound.
It’s what you do
For a little girl
When you are scared
Because she can’t walk anymore.
It’s what you do.
You order ducklings.
You bring pets into her life,
Downy, peeping in a box with holes
The day the post office calls to say
“Your ducklings are here,”
And they acquire Welsh harlequin names:
Bethwyn, Eirlys, Llewelya,
And you take pictures
Of her sitting in the grass
Holding all three, not quite struggling,
And learning to be sisters,
______Or daughters,
______Or ducks.
So light,
It’s easy to hold her in one hand
Palm up,
And to lean deep into the striations of cooler air,
The other hand propped on the ledge
______For balance.
It requires a long-handled shovel
To go deep
With the edges crumbling in
Every time you try to get leverage.
And the news was not good.
It’s a progressive thing,
Life.
No one knows why it stopped
On our plateau of gratitudes.
And it’s what you do.
You use the edges of the spade
To drag the leafy top soil back
To make it like it was before
For your daughter to see
When she gets home from school.
She’s going to see where the ground is disturbed.
It really is a beautiful grave
In the corner of the yard.
It’s what you do
With all you’ve got,
And you’re going to need a long-handled shovel.
* * *
Fred Gerhard’s poetry has appeared in Wild Musette and Contemporary Dance and other publications. He is a psychologist and prefers to write under the name Edgar RF Herd. He makes his home in rural Massachusetts, and when not writing he can often be found morris dancing, hiking, or being followed by ducks hoping he’ll find sorrel and wild strawberries for them, which he generally does.
