Clint Buffington

This Computer Comes From the Earth, Somehow

This beet
this exact beet
bulls-eye and all
huddled low
in this farmer’s
this exact farmer
his field
 
this carrot
this exact carrot
this precise pepper
over and over
they chase
their own ghosts
home
 
but somehow
cradling this computer
in my lap
this very computer
I cannot see
what dirt
or stone
yielded
 
this cobalt
this lanthanum
this cerium
what wrinkled hands
lifted this terbium
to peace
 
praise, o praise
praseodymium
praise the hands
that harvest
dysprosium

---

Leaving For Work

 
We are driftwood and seaweed     mingling awhile
riven at dawn by the ruthless tide.
We are crabs trapping prey on the bank
 
that is our bed     and we are prey     or the bed is a raft
and we are castaways making what life we can
in the damp heat of our struggle.
 
The reef around this house is sidewalk
made with crushed fire coral
and my feet burn with each step. 
 
Coffee at least you say     Yes I say coffee
roll to trap you
Good morning! I say Good morning!
 
You push me     laugh     cover your face     raspberries
on your bare stomach     five ecstatic seconds
I forget the lonesome path I’ve worn across the reef.
 
What are we but strangers on a raft
mumbling our stories
into the backs of each other’s necks at midnight?



--
Clint Buffington is a college writing teacher, blogger, musician, and farmer in Salt Lake City, UT. His poetry has appeared in Slow Trains Literary Journal and Jelly Bucket, and his blog, Message in a Bottle Hunter, has been featured by a variety of newspapers, as well as television and radio news programs worldwide.