THE HEART ATTACK was first published in The Appalachian Journal, Vol. 3, No. 4, 1986, and later was included on George Scarbrough’s reading tape, Ice Storm and Other Poems Read by the Poet, George Scarbrough (Iris Audio Publicatons, 1997.)
THE HEART ATTACK
The turkey-cock's foot
At the hemlock's tip
At the furrow's end
Splurges in the wind.
The killdeer stoops
And stands his ground.
The wind pours down.
Brown mule natters.
That first keen cry
Is what he neither likes
Nor dislikes. It is so
Strange. So unlike.
But no more so
Than that the plow stands,
Its polished point
Gathering light.
The sky comes apart.
It hangs flapping above
The field as they
Carry him home
In his own straight
Chair, curled like
A crinoid from mountain
Shale, and bellowing
Pain. Brown mule
Natters. The killdeer
Utters its wanting cry.
The sky knits again.
At the furrow's end,
At the hemlock's top,
The turkey-cock's foot
Splurges in the wind.
© George Scarbrough, 1986, 1997.
George Scarbrough comments: "This poem voices my indignation at the indifference of the universe to suffering. It becomes a son’s cry for his father, a cry as old as humanity."