In 1895 or thereabouts
Harold Clough was born
in Calais, Vermont.
I knew him for the last oh
25 years of his life,
and deep into that time
I thought to talk with him
with a tape recorder running.
I never did.
You’ll never hear his voice
saying anything.
What a dope I am.
When he started driving a car
there was no such thing
as a driver’s license.
He was under five feet tall,
with huge hands and feet,
and his hair stuck out
from beneath his dirty baseball cap
like quills on a porcupine.
It didn’t bother him
to hold live wires
and he could find water
with a stick or coathanger,
it didn’t matter which.
The skin on his hands was so tough
he could just reach in
and take a pie out of the oven.
He showed me how to hold a nail
and at the same time
to drive it with a hammer,
using only one hand.
Around 80 he subscribed to Playboy,
amazed that he could see those girls
all totally naked and glowing, right there.
He once mailed a donut to my dog.
He knew how to lift a barn
all by himself.
One day I got a call from a friend
who said, “Old Harold just died.
In the hospital. Heart attack.”
About an hour later
the friend called back:
“Harold ain’t dead.
He come back to life.”
Not only that, when a nurse came back in
he was sitting up and smiling.
A few years later he really did die,
of a fire, in the house
he was born in.
I once asked him for his mailing address.
“You can put Harold Clough,
East Calais, Vermont.
Or Harold Clough, Adamant.
Or North Montpelier.
Woodbury. Or Calais.
Don’t matter none. It’ll get to me.”