Jeff Judd
The Shape of the Morning Is Round

Lost and Scratched

I had an argument with a thorn bush
and walked away torn
through the autumn woods
leaving a small blood trail
as I scanned the treetops
for the hiding sun
for a hint of direction
on a fading day
as the temperature dropped
and my bleeding stopped.

I thought of all the trees
I had felled
in a reckless woodburning
all of the crumpled branches
stabbed and snapped into
the ground that sustained them
and wondered if in dismal loss and
cold darkness my own face
and limbs would squeeze into the dirt.

ISBN 1-59661-008-5
33 pages $9
Whether meditating on the nature of roundness, delaying his son’s kiss for the pleasure of his presence, or witnessing his father ease a Chevy out of a mud rut, Jeff Judd’s voice pulls the reader into the palm of his callused, capable hand. Reading The Shape of the Morning Is Round made me want to be alone in the woods, to be the parent of young children again. —Elizabeth Kerlikowske

I’ve known Jeff Judd for a century or two, helped him save a man who had fallen into a large tray of cheese, carried a wheelchair up countless steps with a woman in it, listened rapt long past midnight as he talked endlessly about the denizens of Webberville, where he is a hay broker (he buys and sells hay; what would you call that?) and a cleaner of carrion along country roads. But most of all, he is a poet. For most of the centuries I have known him, I’ve been trying to get him to give me some poems or stories to put on paper so I could show other people what it is like to look at the world through the eyes of a hay broker from Webberville. Finally he came through for me and here is the book he gave me. It’s a good book. He’s a good dad and son, an earnest man without irony. Read this and you will love him as much as I do. —Robert Bixby

Jeff Judd’s world is one of laughter never swept up. His Virgil is a comic, who takes us to the metal yard and lets us see the men who buy our aluminum gutters and toasters. They are not like us, those who know the value of metal. Judd’s voice belongs to those fixers who love broken things, but it’s through his children we see his best work. When he tells us “the shape of the morning is round,” we believe in each sunrise and Cheerios eaten by his children at the table. At play or work, he leads us toward a good place—and we must learn to trust his figure seen early in the morning waving for us to follow him through the dew-soaked hay. —Russell Thorburn