Michael Peterson

from repeater

What you like is a story about persistence:
  a conscript who, unlonely, bears
his standard behind the palisade but who
  at night, maybe, ventures into
a forest that becomes so useful. What you
  like most is the moment the forest
becomes his new way, an original kind of
  plan that was elusive, petrified
as he once was in spite of weapon, amenity,
  despite a fire holding back
the night sky. In time, he makes tools
  of the same material they’ll
render useful, the axe with its oak handle,
  an awl of antler driving home.
There is another reason and what you like
  is the way the reason differs from
everything that came before, everything
  ramped up and electric,
like a music beyond mistake, like lightning
  on a meadow–
and the meadow saying here and here

•••••

Rescue comes, probably. Provision, horses.
  And this is the part of the story
you don’t prefer, the way relief gallops
  through the perimeter as if
that was what threshold had always been for–
  for passing through and arriving–
and the strange hands that seize your banner,
  demanding what has happened here,
here, let us take this for you.