from the Iroquois Museum came the story   of a sky woman who fell thru the clouds and was caught by geese who set her down   on a turtle’s back. Thus, people came   on Bear Road there were no bears on Schoolhouse Road only a swamp on the state highway freight trucks   roared past us for half a mile and on Red Barn Road somebody had   recently painted a barn red   and there the mud-covered cows charged toward us   and waited for a word at the hot-wired fence   we told them we meant   Helios no offense   weeping willow trees were always close to houses   while lichen-covered, crag-wrinkled trees had faces to be seen, recognized on them   all these barns with roofs sagging like wet paper   tear themselves down by decay   unstitched nails pop from buckled walls   under which the white ash and maple sprout   when we came down from the hill   where fog enshrouded us rushing water in culverts   was loud but invisible