Musket Ball

James Scruton

Who knows how it landed 
in our pasture, how many times 
by groundswell or by plow 
it rose and fell like a slow, tiny moon 
in that night-black loam
before I found it, pocked and cratered,
its dark side cold on my palm?

Leaden teardrop, lump of history, spent shot 
from some collector’s antique gun,
most likely—though I can picture
a soldier blue or grey 
on the march to Memphis, 
granddaddy’s rifle on his shoulder, 
can even picture granddaddy himself 
frontiering here like Crockett or Boone, 
his aim just off one day, 
this forged ball thudding to earth 
beyond the lucky deer.

Or maybe it didn’t miss 
but didn’t either kill, carried 
in deep muscle or between the ribs 
for miles if not seasons 
until laid against the grass 
with hair and skin, antler, heart and bone,
soon all of it dust but this metal slug
I roll back and forth now on my desk, 
the hard fact of itself cast like a die 
across my imagination.