to lift roots and ink and air

To Lift Roots and Ink and Air

“and by twos and threes

the children sank”

                        adult eye-

                        witness

when the drowned are exhumed  

it’s not really called that.  and when the nets

are cast out, and hooks and weights…

when a boat drifts and the oars lift and in the still waters—

or it’s supposed to be still, it’s supposed to be

quiet, even the crows, even those, black flashes

of prophesy scudded to other trees 

when the first boy is brought in by his sister

who right there on the shore needed no

exhumation at all, just a puff maybe, 

of breath, just a gust, the way one would cuff

the face of a panicked mother, cuff-cuff- then a puff

the hot air out, in, in deep

enough to reach that lung, to get it going

again.  it's later, a lot later, she'll remember

the chuff of flight, the shuffle of the air and the weight
of the birch limbs heavy with them, those birds 
and the liquid wing of ink

spilled that last week across the desk, taking the face

and breast of a crow, and even though it was sanded and dried,

and wiped there's a stain, a soak to

the grain, the air wafting in from the open June

window and by Jesus wouldn’t you know it’s still

seems tacky come September when teacher

dabs it—his desk—the first boy—and carries it

to the front of the room and covers it

with her mother’s best white doily

and a scented geranium gurgling red, rescued, 
root-bound in weed and gloom.  Would you look

at it bloom now boys and girls, come take a breath of it.  And the crow fades
beneath the lace, fades and stays mute

until he's exhumed too, lifted to the light
after such heavy, heavy things laid down
on him