JENN BLAIR | Scattering
The Mclean House was dismantled long ago . Some Niagara Falls investors had big plans to haul it down the Shenandoah and then off to D . C ., but nothing happened . The materials were left in a heap .
That ’ s how the house became five planks in the side of a barn Jim Riley cures dark-fire tobacco in and the fireplace mantle Mr . Whitcomb made for his wife before cancer tore out one side of her mouth and she turned towards the wall and gave up trying . Some of its shingles were turned into boats the Johnson and Matthison boys sailed then left down at the creek before they grew up to be gamblers and plumbers and soldiers who died on a faraway beach in France . The bricks are walkways and Chimneys . One served as doorstop in Laura Beech ’ s yeast swollen bakery for sixty-seven years . The good nails got pulled out while the bent , stubborn ones burned , unwilling saints charring on winter nights in the scrap that held them .
When I was young I dreamed a poet ’ s whistle might one day send planks busting out of their places in farmhouse walls from twenty miles around , a boy thrilling at lumber ambling on out of the ashes — a sharp sound gathering joist , shelf , fence , and stair back up — the doily and candlestick re-united , shiny gold buttons sewn firmly back onto a great General ’ s coat , untouched cup of tea sitting safely again inside the narrow circle of its chipped saucer . Now I say let things stay where they will . We have seen enough .
6 LIGHT