After the ox died Paul shrunk
into the North Woods,
crushed his axe between his hands
leaving twig-sized splinters
to fester and freeze.
And he’d chew at them,
nervous as the deer he stopped
shooting in favor of sweets
he’d steal from campers.
Once a year Paul would bathe
in the spring mud, scrape his naked
body with dead cedar branches.
Look at air, nothing.
Dirt, nothing. Pull the head off
a newborn robin,
nothing. Squinting sky-wide
eyes at the lake he’d grumble
into the water,
not rinsing the mud off
but lying supine
on the sand.
He’d stare up at blue,
the ebb and flow of stars for months
before he’d peel
his crusty back off the lakebed, swallow
the gravel in his mouth,
mash some ferns against his groin
and wander further north
kicking branches off the pines.
—
Bradley Allf is a postdoctoral researcher at Colorado State University studying ecology. He also works as a freelance science writer and his work has appeared in a variety of publications, including Smithsonian, Sierra, Undark, Atlas Obscura, and Scientific American. Bradley is a co-author on the project formerly known as the National Nature Assessment and is contributing to the chapter on nature’s intangible benefits.
