by Marge Piercy
Robins migrate, all schoolchildren
learn but here on the Cape, every
winter a flock forms and stays,
long frigid months after their
compatriots have flown south.
learn but here on the Cape, every
winter a flock forms and stays,
long frigid months after their
compatriots have flown south.
They live deep in the woods on
hips and berries wizened by cold.
Sometimes they appear here
among the feeder birds, one
or two almost outcasts.
hips and berries wizened by cold.
Sometimes they appear here
among the feeder birds, one
or two almost outcasts.
Off Alaska when humpback whales
leave in fall as the waters freeze
and the world turns white, heading
for mating grounds off Hawaii
and Mexico, certain whales remain.
leave in fall as the waters freeze
and the world turns white, heading
for mating grounds off Hawaii
and Mexico, certain whales remain.
What makes a creature stay when
almost all of its kind have moved on?
In burned-out areas of Detroit,
you’ll notice one house still wears
curtains, a bike locked to the porch.
almost all of its kind have moved on?
In burned-out areas of Detroit,
you’ll notice one house still wears
curtains, a bike locked to the porch.
Sometimes in the suburbs among
tract houses with carpets of grass
one farmhouse lurks, maybe even
with a barn. I imagine its owner
grey and stubborn, still growing
tract houses with carpets of grass
one farmhouse lurks, maybe even
with a barn. I imagine its owner
grey and stubborn, still growing
the best tomatoes for miles, refusing
to plant inedible grass, fighting
neighbors about her chickens,
a rooster who crows at four,
her clothesline a flag of defiance.
to plant inedible grass, fighting
neighbors about her chickens,
a rooster who crows at four,
her clothesline a flag of defiance.
~*~
Our beautiful back alley clothes lines were removed and discarded by the new landlord in 1996. Marie and I used to wave at one another on wash days. That weekly neighborly ritual of connection now gone, I hang my hand wash over the bathtub now.
~*~
Yesterdays Headlines
The New York Times
Narcissus Waking
Dormant since Last November they rise to flower for December
Television Nightlight
Sound muted, the caption function gone crazy, Depak Chopra speaks in tongues.
"Not My President"
Listen to a sixteen minute Post Election reflection from Gloria Steinham:
http://www.wnyc.org/story/gloria-steinem-first-woman-president/?utm_source=local&utm_medium=treatment&utm_campaign=daMost&utm_content=damostviewed&utm_source=Newsletter%3A+This+Week+On+WNYC&utm_campaign=9488c39f4b-This+Week+on+WNYC+9%2F20%2F16&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0473b3d0b8-9488c39f4b-73109013&mc_cid=9488c39f4b&mc_eid=7ba8f4241b
~*~
2 comments:
and through all this there is growing.
Yup--living and dying--rising and falling;
simultaneous, synchronistically attuned to
waves, riding wavelengths of everything--O
no wonder everyone I meet seems in a hurry.
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