Don’t call this world adorable, or useful, that’s not it.
in the garden of dust?
Mary Oliver
Don’t call this world adorable, or useful, that’s not it.
in the garden of dust?
Mary Oliver
My mother never should have let us play
in the deep woods that spun and twisted behind our house.
Sometimes we wandered for miles
during that time of year
when the grizzlies sauntered from hibernation
sleepily impatient with hunger;
too close to where we collected things–
their fetid slyness heavy and unseen behind the waking evergreens of spring.
Once, I dropped an armful of dead branches
upon hearing the winter-induced intoxication of
the Mountain Queen herself.
She shuffled and heaved the unsteadiness of her trunk forward;
an eager cub followed inoffensively in her prints.
My brother and I left our bodies behind
we ran so hard.
And then other times,
the woods were silent for years.
Even the elegance of a buck tiptoeing on snow-dampened leaves
did nothing to disturb the stillness.
We were often found crouched by the rotted wood of an old corral
investigating petrified prints of worms and shells when our sister came to find us.
My sister was always beautiful when she was coming to find us;
the flush in her cheeks and the tangled urgency to the red weaves of her hair
brought human life into the world our imaginings allowed us to belong.
“And now the old story has begun to write itself over there,” said Carl softly. “Isn’t it queer: there are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before; like the larks in this country, that have been singing the same five notes for thousands of years.”
― Willa Cather
Going for a run
I jump off the side of the road when the cars come;
I am alone with this building now,
like I wanted.
The blur of speed stirs a loose shingle
and the ghost churns the leaves in a circle.
From the corner of my eye
there is a body darting from the slump of window.
I am certain of five fingers,
alabaster clinging loosely to the toothy edge
and then the creak of floorboards
where presently there are none.
Another car and whirl of wind;
field mice stir from oxidized walls
squeaking and flitting at my ankles—
from inside
someone, something
sighs and shifts its weight.
I am close enough to hold that ashen hand in mine,
familiar enough to ask
which one are you
save the impenetrable boundary between us.
when cell phones have parted us
and factories and robots
and cars—
all those nice cars
and video games and grocery stores
and televisions
when it is hard to look you in the eye
and my fingers jerk
and my mind twitches
and my stomach searches
and computers—
all those expensive computers…
and i can’t sleep
and sometimes i sleep too much
and oh my God i’m twitching
it will be nice to look at this picture
and think about the barns.
the quiet barns
and the simple trees.
the calm farmer
the calloused hands.
the shoes, the clothes, the hair, the faces–
thinned out, not new.
the cock-crow light on the backs of chickens
the nimbus around the good milking cows.
the looks on their faces
as they pause for a long while
to survey all the greatness they’ve built…