Five Lick is a little littered
with an engine block
work pants with holey knees
white ceramic canning lids   
   as valuable as silver dollars.
Five  Lick is where rutting deer   
   come for the mineral salt
amid florescent butterflies
back bend of dragonflies
minnows at the crossing rock
finches in the nettle leaf.
A narrow road (in the holler
beside this stream that runs
between our Dividing Ridge
and their Ogden Ridge) floods
when unexpected rain pours
out from fully loaded buckets.
That is when I come to clip
my beard with a hatchet
and roar in an off-key tune:
ol’ dogs halt your howlings
an’ come along my grandsons  
into this flow of my desire
build your pa a funeral pyre
watch my slippery dance            
 my stone-to-stone prance