The tattering call

by Prairie L. Markussen

 after Andy Goldsworthy 

He is fascinated by the circle, 
birthing it anyplace with nature’s nearest tools. 
          His circles gape dark in dust, push 

webbed mesh of twigs aside to allow 
its gravid circumferences to spread, hollow out 
snow mounds, only to see them cave 

in on themselves, given time. 
The circle is everywhere. 
          Yet it is the erring oval, edges uneven, 

the tips pointed, that suit him better. The circle 
is nature’s darling, the eye’s easy choice. 
The almonded oval is something else. 

It is not the moon, not the berry, 
not the orange or the sun. 
It is the hard, red sand of Mount Victor, 

carved, layered—an ever-descending 
opening. It is the clay pushed 
          into the hollow of a south-facing tree in Runnymede. 

It is its remoteness 
in shadow, its welcome smile 
in dappled light. 

It is the feathering of red leaves, 
like a hemline of lace, 
edging the inward-facing bark 

in Scaur Water. It is the oval, its hopeful half, 
the ragged earth-slash, and not 
the circle, that suits him. It shows. 

It is evident—he has toyed tenderly with stones, 
stuck numb hand between rocks 
in creek beds, sought the crevasse 

in the glacier, traced the uneven borders 
of countries and waters alike along 
a yellowing map. The uneven, 
​
and imperfect. Not the yawn of the circle, 
but the tattering call, the bright cry, 
of the other.