BYTIME IN YANGLAND

 

one

 

 

Cold midfall rain the

yinland prairie mudden

and morning a tardle

night getting sooner

each wind breath counted a

time to betake

            arrived from yangland in rented truck as I had departed

                         the grand finale

            she had written, I wanted to be around had meant to move

            anyway, Eva was thin and joking at home very old, we

            bantered in Norwegian, Swedish

jag tänker ge mi gut på en lång resa

troligen dröjer det innan vi ses igen

            either might have said, cruel, true, Hjalmar Gullberg had cut

            out forever on his own, was it that or dull feuding remark to

            mate, she went in the

                         sykehus sjukhus

            while I walked

                         through Fargo autumn in rare sun. Visited Trefoil Park and my pet

                         basswood, which stood unchanged, magnificent. The town is

                         getting younger

            jotted in log, went to bunk at old farm miles away, my sister’s

            now who attended Eva told me anon that she had come back to the

            apartment was quitting

                         all of her medications

there will never be another

like your everlovin mother

            scrap of tune in my head, I unloaded truck but did not hunt to

            settle had left my vee-doubleyew in yangland with camping

            household aboard, visited Eva daily, would rollick on carpet at

            onetime girlfriend’s, not quite right, hard to withdraw     

the elder grove had

man bones in it not marked

flat seabed country

mired with rain again

mud to much enhinder

movement on road

            Eva had mentioned nursing home was on morphine now wanted

                         Hospice

            would do the

                         finale

            in apartment, twilit room, one could only sit adrift with her but

            mark the clarity when she talked who had been a teaching marm

            Dakota magazine writer a pioneer too in divorce, was keeping

            mind in her mideighties would die well but when no one knew,

            I had agreed to drive a limo to yangland the time fixed, hated the

            churn of getting to or out of mud farm, could not stay

you comin or gnat

she chews to do dat

            tune fragment uninvited

                         I sat with Eva the last a.m., read newspaper. She did not look or talk.

                         Breaths. On her way to mahasamadhi. Don’t want to be a skipjack.

                         My sister will tend to everything

            the rain went hard to make me late to bus, I got there in time

            and watched a dun damp afternoon move to lighten toward Saint

            Paul where I drank had conversation, Highland, Cherokee, in

            limo I ran all day all night a climbing

                         outside temp

            noted on dash, awake

there will never be another

like your everlovin mother

y no volveráááá

            end line a gift of texmex radio at three in what morning,

            Tucumcari’s maybe, I had shanked myself would land at

            Phoenix winter home to limo, smog palms I knew

                         you were nice to my baby, I should ditch it

            Minnesota doctor with a wink in the tiled

                         vestíbulo

            gave me ride in it to station, nothing too near in Del Webb

            Arizona

                         del web

                         de la tela

                         tela mundial

you ain’t going back

to live in no shack

            almost did not reach it, traffic snag, my car was up in

            mountain town, the rim

                         ain’t no coach

            at time they had told me on phone I learned, had to walk

            through worldwide desert slum to get to other depot would

            take a city bus and catch the shuttle at Greenway

                         it hit me in shank of afternoon, midtrek, vacant lot, a quick dead

                         pain in low right shank, tight iron anklet. I had to drag the leg

            but made the connections, it went away, I had known toned

            hiking muscle to cramp, not this, hurt that ringed a limb had

            tines to it, woman met the shuttle on darkened Mogollon

                         I got a call, your mom died this afternoon

y no volveráááá

            I had been out five days, thought to return in car to

            deathwatch, but cremation of Eva, gawd

not one more bone to

wetten in the ravine

            who had once built fire in ice country school, heaped it big

            at dude ranch Montana, a Roosevelt young time, with age

            turned Nixonian Reaganite, devout

                         you said goodbye then, achieved closure

            the woman asked me

                         no

incinerate now

the ashes will be

somewhere out of the mud

a lighted room

            too very soon a

                         memorial service

            that Eva had written even taped many minutes for

jag har ordnat en mängd detaljer i samband med färden

jag har förberett allt utom själva resrouten

            had left no comma or period to others meaning chance, I

            could not attend but went on tenting tour of yangland the

            low desert at

                         Black Mountains

                         Alamo Dam

            to a wild-ass lullaby

                         Organ Pipe

                         Coronado

                         Chiricahua

                         Fort Bowie

            wanted a winter den and camped a week to think at foot of

            Mount Graham, meet night alone where days were next to hot,

            noting the

                         painful effect of the nature descriptions

            in

                         The Devil in Massachusetts

                         untruth, ideomania

dreaming that a

                         pretty young woman came and embraced me and

                         said, you’re Taverner, I’m Twenty

            I hiked mountain rock in sun to reread Japanese poetry

                         Crime and Punishment

            ere the light went, had not much beer at fireside with night into

            late autumn now, Eva was gone

but dat’s okay

it’s a latter day

yo lo leí en el Libro de Mormonnnn

            where to hide, wait out the hard desert coolth not cold, but

            Yuma elevation one hundred, I

                         said goodbye then

            to noon

                         Noon Creek

                         Noon Ridge

            the tentsite ants a few of which I had put to

                         kremasjon

            denying them the life in beauty that I somehow merited, her

            loss a narcotic moment, I knew another

                         painful effect

            that of

                         bright afternoon on one who has just come out of a movie

            demerited

ah bin infectit

ah bin rejectit

            and took the long west road that dropped through Tucson, a

hundred saguaros

giving me the finger

in as many ways

            to Gila Bend, petroglyph campground utter quiet, no one there

                         it’ll get down in the forties tonight

            the host an old Norwegian said

                         General Patton brought his tanks out here, you see that hill, that

                         dot, you meet a lot of women in Yuma

            went early morning up the butte, dark rock not a glyph,

            isolated naked range on range the view, good tank country

            between, atop it the dot a ruined tin shack of command, I

            have to look around in Yuma I thought, may find the real

                         Twenty

            translate with her from

pícaro to picaroon

pícara to picayune

            live as two where nature has nothing to say but sun not have

            to think, I want to

                         stand up for the crazy and stupid

            Edward Abbey citing Whitman, may take out an ad

                         Scandiknavian seeks relaytionship. Crazy, stupid okay, don’t step

                         on my new Swede shoes

            or lie down with in bytime forever, my hemithinking on the

            approach the low ragged Gilas ahead

                         y mas allá

            the yangland heart a Yuma I did not know had once ridden

            through, imagined

warm autumn morning

on the agricanal

                         flat as Dakota but with cotton and date, lettuce. Breath of weary

                         river, salt sand. Trouble in heaven

            I found in an ar-vee Cadillac road jam, all had thronged here

            at once, the day after judgment it had to have been when into

                         heaven the righteous will be received and see the glory

            fight over the last nylon broom in megamarket

                         where did you get that dustpan, are there any left, how much do you

                         want, ten dollars enough goddamn you

            was it Eva in the aisle at K mart, had to have been, the Nova

            Scotia bumper velleity

                         I’d rather be sealing

            not meant, I walked to relief in inken shade of old town but

            saw the handwritten sign on a peluquería

                         winter visitors welcome

                         bienvenido lechugueros

                         how to say snowbird. What wit. Spend the green or pick it, aha

            would know more soon have to mock myself

bytime not to change

an egret movement

            I camped at Mittry Lake the edge of town, not a tent site, reed-

            thicket nook wherein many a gringo

                         pescador

            had drunk, another effluvium I did not like, unnameable, woke

            to the same iron ache, it had hit the left hip now would not let

            me go, I had to

                         tow that leg

            when Eva was mad at someone would

                         stick in a needle that hurt

            my sister told me, true, too bad, I made it anyway

                         to Bihari motel. Have to wash up, hunt a job and digs no matter. I’ll

                         walk it off. An orange tree in the yard

            would know more soon that a woman had been killed and

            dumped in Mittry Lake a week ago, was twenty

some come to the yangland

y no vuelvennnn

 

 

 

 

jäg tanker . . .                I think I shall go out on a long trip,

                                      It may be awhile before we meet again.

                                          (from Sonat, copyright © 1929 by Hjalmar Gullberg)

sykehus, sjukhus           hospital

y no volveráááá             and won’t return

vestíbulo                      vestibule

de la tela                       of the web

tela mundial                  world web

jag har ordnat . . .          I have planned the trip in some great detail,

                                       I have prepared everything but the exact itinerary.

                                           (Hjalmar Gullberg, ibid.)

yo lo leí . . .                  I read it in the Book of Mormon.

kremasjon                     cremation

y más allá                     and father away

peluquería                    barber shop

bienvenido lechugueros  welcome lettuce pickers

pescador                     fisherman

y no vuelvennnn           and do not return

 

                 

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Rodney Nelson is a lifelong nonacademic and has been in print since 1970, when his poems and narratives began appearing in Georgia Review and the like. He switched to the ezines, e.g., Big Bridge, in 2002. A novel and other long narratives have been published in Retort Magazine. He lives in Arizona and North Dakota.