Allen Hoey has published six collections of poems and three novels; Once Upon a Time at Blanche’s is his most recent collection of poems. His 2008 collection of poems, Country Music, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. His other books include A Fire in the Cold House of Being (selected by Galway Kinnell for the 1985 Camden Poetry Award), What Persists, Provençal Light & Other Poems, and The Precincts of Paradise, all poetry collections, and Chasing the Dragon: A Novel about Jazz, Voices Beyond the Dead, and On the Demon’s Trail, a mystery. His poems and reviews have appeared in numerous journals, among them The American Poetry Review, The Georgia Review, The Hudson Review, Poetry, Shenandoah, and The Southern Review. His poem “A Thousand Prostrations” was included in Essential Zen (HarperCollins) and another poem, “Essay on Snow,” was included in The Best American Spiritual Writing of 2004 (Houghton Mifflin). In 1993 he accepted the Precepts as a Rinzai Zen Buddhist. He was 2001 Bucks County Poet Laureate and currently serves as Director of the Bucks County Poet Laureate Program. He received a 2002 Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship. He lives in an 18th century stone cottage on an old horse farm with a view of Bowman’s Hill.

 

 

—The Book of Common Prayer

 

 

What passes for a camp—a sleeping bag

spread on a flat rock at the top of the falls, tucked

just under the canopy of oaks and tall pines, a fire

sputtering a yard or two away on which I cooked

a rudimentary dinner of canned hash in a battered

frying pan—June, early July, the night temperature still

drops into the forties, colder with the mist from the falls

evaporating in the air, I try to lie wrapped in the bag on

ungiving rock. The stream flows around elephantine

boulders that glow in the moonlight as though

haloed by their own inner light, though I suspect

it’s just the spume from the current

glistening in the pale light, but I can’t

shake the sensation that the rocks, the steam, the trees

enfolding overhead all listen, all know that I’m

lying here, an alien presence in a world where they

take darkness for themselves, worship

whatever stones and leaves and water

adore—God, I don’t know, I think I’ve

grown beyond such thoughts, just out here

in the darkness, trying to sleep, alone, for reasons

I don’t completely understand, drawn by the promise

of silence, peace, a kind of quietude I rarely

find in daily life—all this to lie on a flat rock

and feel every small pebble stab my back, yet the stars

blink between the leaves of the great trees

swaying in the night breeze, in the uprush of air

as the water tumbles into the chasm. A bird

wakes a moment in the darkness—my firelight, perhaps,

a dream, if birds dream the way we believe

dogs do, their paws running in their sleep, slight

whimpers, muffled barks—whistles once, twice, then

silence. Except the trees keep whispering, the stream keeps

hymning its song of flow and tumble, the falls

rush a mighty Gloria to the stars that shine down

on this, on me, until the sound becomes

too much, I rise, pace the slab, walk to the water’s edge

and lift my head, stretch out my arms as though

starlight, stream-spume—something—might

enter me—darkness, glory, the distillation of everything

dim and bright, solid and ephemeral, the bugs

dancing among the rocks like dropped

shards of heaven’s dome. Too much. Too much

quiet, darkness, effervescent light. I turn to the fire,

nudge free the largest log I foraged from the woods,

roll it to the edge of the falls and kick it,

flaming and hissing down the length of the cascade.

I doubt that I could find that place today.

 

 

 

 

Water over rock, a shifting melody. Liquid notes, then

the flat stretch where the stream runs knee-deep,

pants leaching water to the crotch, the water cool

but sun warm, glints of light on flowing water, ripples

holding the brilliance and carrying it several yards

downstream before releasing it in the eyes. Algae

swaying beneath the surface, the slick rocks

giving under sneakers. High summer, the trees in full leaf,

greens gone sparkling almost yellow in the steady

flux of sunlight, the few clouds drifting across

the slim channel of parched blue between the trees,

line whipping back—forward, arm pumping. The slight

dimple where the fly lands, rides the current, then lofted

and stroked back, forward, each swing unloosing

more line, a farther cast: fly, dimple, feeding rings

and occasional jumps: the trout for a moment

glistening—the hatch, the hit, the screech of reel

as the trout dives, fighting the line. Water, sparks of light—

here, on the bank. Autumn, the rill shallow, water

dropping over the rocks—not now, not as then—

her on the bank, watching, idly dipping her

hand in the chill, ferns in the deep shadow, trillium,

May-apples—the spread blanket, emptying the wicker

basket, sandwiches—wine—he showed her what

lay gasping in silence, swaddled in damp ferns in the creel.

 

 

 

 

 

“Are there lakes in your life,” he asked, and while

some come to mind, I immediately, instead,

remember flow—the surge and pull of rivers,

creeks, and streams, small and melodious

or wide and quiet, the shush of waves against

the banks a whisper in the dark beneath

trees that edge right up to the flow and arch

beyond, the tug of current against my legs

while the flyline whistles overhead, sparkle

of sun on water—gleam, glint—something

hard as the light that pierces the eyes,

the dark where the water goes under

roots the water’s freed from earth, gnarled,

veiny bits of the underworld brought to light,

the way the pulsing water against my calves

resonates with the water coursing through

my arteries and veins, blood both, red or blue,

flowing, tumbling, sometimes in cascades

that drop long yards to the pool below,

the buoyancy of wave, the ever-forward

propulsion of water following water, water.

 

 

 

—The Book of Common Prayer

 

 

Because it seems so far away. Measure

the distance in time, in miles, an emotional

expanse that never ends, wide, deep, the gap

we never cross because the furthest edge

always, like the horizon, slips farther away

the further we go, the closer we come.