A small person reads an old-fashioned
Printed paper magazine in which
August, well-regarded names follow
Passages of some profundity
And wit about being and aging.
The small person sets the magazine
Down on a battered side table next
To a futon made up as a bed
And thinks on what the well-regarded
Names are credited as having said.
The laundry machine cycles to spin.
Words above one well-regarded name
Refer to visiting someone’s grave.
Words above the other refer
To reading well-regarded writers
As if they were hard to understand.
What does the prey actually feel
As the pack hunters circle it?
Nothing other than rising fear
And the surge of adrenaline?
Does the nonhuman have a sense
Of more than fearfulness, of doom?
And what is the feeling of doom
Exactly, even for humans?
Probably no more than terror
Triggered like any other fear,
Symphonic hormonal response
To a looming threat, uncertain
Of the end, although certainty,
In the human case, is the threat.
It’s quiet behind the windows.
The day closes in on sunset.
Not out of nothing
Into nothing much
But into nothing
Out of nothing much—
Creation’s into,
Always, never out,
Tied to the bowsprit,
Nevermind the mast,
Pummeled by foaming
Wine-dark waves and wind,
Not at all tempted
By tendrils of song.
It’s water-boarding
And battering more
Than riding some shell
Modestly attired
In nothing but self.
If you get across
Some patch of ocean
To scratch up ashore,
You’re fit to sail more.
Train tracks cut through the grey
Winter woods, rough scrub brush,
Really, what grew itself
Back around the steel tracks.
A woman walked the ties,
Looking for any clues
Of her missing grown son,
A picture in the news,
Frozen in the moment
Of its particular
Circumstances, that place,
The there-ness of the tracks,
The thin scraps of new snow,
The tangled, bare branches,
The scattered piles of wood,
The woman’s round shoulders
In her dark anorak,
Black pant legs in gum boots,
No animals or birds
Anywhere in the view,
No sign of her lost son.
Staring at a humming
Steel refrigerator,
Human-produced machine,
Like it might say something,
A familiar warning
Worms its way through the brain—
The world is not people.
It’s so self-evident,
Why’s it so hard to grasp
And keep always in mind?
The stars are not people,
Waiting to talk to you.
The rock wren on the stones
Outside winter’s window
Is a bird, not people,
Not bringing a message
To you from the bird tribe.
The floor is not people,
Although people built it
And the roof, and the walls.
They’re not there to explain
Themselves or to gossip
About the furnishings.
The trees are not people,
Leafless or evergreen.
The weather’s not people,
However influenced
By what people may do.
You know this, through and through.
Still, you sit and you wait,
Unintentionally
Expectantly for things
To say something to you.
