Country Poem With Boy Poem by Stug Jordan

The countryside sleeps,
feet on the fireguard,
and dreams of people
swelling its muddy banks.

Morning sees an early boy,
grinning displeasures;
bread-fisted.
His backbone is the spine
of centuries,

as clouds sail above
his damp hair
and a war-like noise punishes
the farms where he walks
in and out like a document.

He lays to sleep
by the countryside,
a bundle of clothes in the hearth.
What he doesn't know
won't kill him,

irreverent Magna Carta.