Crosscut

Poems

Sean Prentiss

• Publisher: UNM Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780826361318
• eBook ISBN: 9780826361325
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

Sean Prentiss takes readers into what it means to be a rookie trail-crew leader guiding a motley collection of at-risk teens for five months of backbreaking work in the Pacific Northwest. It is a world where the sounds of trail tools—Pulaskis, McLeods, and hazel hoes—filter into dreams and set the rhythm of each day. In this memoir-in-poems, Prentiss shares a music most of us will never experience, set to tools swung and sharpened, backdropped by rain and snow and sun, as individuals transform into crew.

II

TRAIL CREW

Day one, I drive this new crew of teens south

on Oregon’s I-5 toward the poison

oak–infested Cascade Range. Six teens,

paid hourly, slump in the row seats of our

shimmering white van. Apathetic faces gaze at

blurred firs as we abandon Eugene for

spring & summer in tents. When we return,

April flowers will be replaced by September

leaves. In the rearview, I scan faces, trying to

tease out histories. Today, I can only guess.

For a first time crew leader, it can’t get

worse. Strings, a homeless heroin dabbler who

plays guitar like songbirds sing. Sirius,

hooked on pot & breaking into houses to get

money to smoke himself away. Red, a shy

red-haired McDonald’s assistant manager,

one of only two women on our crew

along with Stacey, a meth addict who will be

here so few days we never know her myths.

Boone, recently out of alcohol rehab, wears wavy

black hair in a ponytail, like Shilo, except

Shilo sports a smiley-face wound ear to

Adam’s apple to ear—a week old & scabbed;

someone tried to saw his head off. The seven

of us—today strangers—will spend months building

trails, returning to primitive. Today, tomorrow,

the five months ahead, I will learn this crew

the way rock learns erosion. Incrementally.

BEARD: DAY 1

Stubble blossoms

from cheeks,

a rain cloud shadowing.

BORN FROM EXPLOSIVE VOLCANIC EVENTS

We are embraced

our first three weeks

by nineteen thousand

acres of andesite

& basalt monoliths

phoenixing from

the western slope of

the southern Cascades.

Up a convolution

of logging roads we

drive till we terminate

at a sign that reads,

Boulder Creek Wilderness.

Here, we nest.

DAY 3 REVIEW

Strings is quiet, removed. Something bothers

him. Here or at home? He plays guitar,

then smokes cigarettes till he runs out.

Boone lops branches off trees like a yeti.

Converses naturally, nearly dominates,

then backs away so others can talk.

Stacey says I won’t have a problem with her

work. I do. She sat down on the job today.

She questions her abilities. So do I.

Sirius reminds me of those tall kids trying

to hunch smaller. A goofy kid strutting

like some Portland gangster.

Red is passion for outdoors. Outspoken,

stronger voiced than even Boone.

Soft feet. Blistered. Works hard. She’ll thrive.

Shilo lives on the Warm Spring Reservation.

Every time I look over, he’s got a smirk

plastered on his face. Plus that pink scar.

Me? I’m wondering about how to

lead this gang of teens, how to guide them

through these wildernesses of our lives.

SIMPLE MATH

Day four, Stacey spits, I quit, sits down on the job. After work we’ll drive you, I say, to the bus station. She waits just long enough for me to turn my back, then she’s vapor or mist or breeze, wisping through Douglas fir.

We find her hitchhiking remote Umpqua Forest service roads, thumbing for wheels. I drive her to Roseburg, press a ticket into her hand, wish her well, wish I had another week to convince her of this spike life.

The drive back to Boulder Creek, Sirius asks, What day is today? Someone does the math: April 20. We hush as we each remember the last time we got messed up on booze or weed or heroin. Stacey’s not the only one

running.

BEARD: DAY 7

Black whiskers begin,

like grass after rain,

to lie softly.

BOULDER CREEK

Close your eyes a moment, then

open them to that babbling creek

—what is its name? Maybe Boulder

Creek or Rattlesnake or some other

name so beautiful you long to hold

it in your mouth, run your tongue

across the sound, hush its name

back into the full-moon breeze.

Let the creek course its way toward

the North Umpqua River. This moment

I learn life is too big to hold. It is only

something to be tasted, a savoring.

MUSEUM OF HAND TOOLS

Nine hours after we start, Strings

bellows, Tool count. Everyone halts

in mid-swing & lays tools upon trail

as if in a museum of hand tools.

We count & re-count—

2 high-reach saws

3 handsaws

2 loppers

4 Pulaskis

2 pick-adzes

3 hazel hoes

2 hog hoes

1 rock bar

2 McLeods

1 crosscut saw

2 handles

—incanti...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Balance Point
• I
• II
• III
• IV
• V
• Glossary of Trail Terms
• Acknowledgments