LAMENT FOR THE LARD FIRKIN
 
 
Lard Firkin.  Chain Trace.  Thunder Mug.
We don�t need these words anymore.
 
No one said abstract expressionism
when they whitewashed the maples.
 
The Zenith voice box took up one whole corner
with its fa�ade like a cathedral window.
 
No one said fa�ade.
No one said cathedral
 
though they ran a plumb line
and built a Methodist church.
 
Clapboard.  Woodstove.  Altar Call.
They dismantled two hogs
 
to make it through the winter.
Souse Meat.  Cracklings.  Liver Pudding.
 
Those too can go.
You don�t have to know a treadle
 
from a two-man saw.
Come butter come
 
is no way to talk.
Goodbye good words
 
and the mouths they fit.
We don�t need names now
 
for the gear to get up a mule.
We don�t need a wagon tongue,
 
and saying it
will not make it so.
 
 
 
Michael Chitwood