The Brush

Someone cleared it, piled it up

Between the fence and the road.

For someone it was a chore,

Presumably reducing

The risk of conflagration—

Clearing brush. Decades ago,

Ronald Reagan would clear brush

On his ranch so frequently

It seemed a euphemism—

The president clearing brush,

Whenever the press corps asked,

Although it was hard to tell—

A euphemism for what?

Dozing on his couch? Hatching

Fresh international plots?

Here it was actual brush,

A heap of twigs and branches,

Abandoned as Frost’s wood pile

To the slow smokeless burning

Of decay. Terribly slow,

Actually. Slow enough

Whole lives—families of voles,

Colonies of ants, seasons

Of spiderlings—had lived there.

It’s possible the fossil

Of this brush pile could be found

In an excavated mound

A few centuries from now—

That’s if Archaeology

Survived as a profession.

Probably not. Already

It had become settled past,

Something someone did one day,

The doing of which remained,

However unrepeated,

Cleared brush one side of the way.