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| Impossible to capture these sunsets 02-15-2016 |
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| Bonneville Shoreline Trail 02-19-2016 |
"As we race toward the future, we must never forget the fundamental reality of our situation: we are flying blind"
- Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski and John Peterson Myers Our Stolen Future
THE NATURE OF GOTHIC
I show you a girl running at night
among trees that do not love her
and the shadows of many fathers
without paths, without even
torn bread or white stones
under a moon that says nothing to her.
I mean it says: Nothing.
There is a man nearby
who claims he is a lover
but smells of plunder.
How many times will he have to tell her
to kill herself before she does?
It's no use to say
to this girl: You are well cared for.
Here is a safe room, here
is food and everything you need.
She cannot see what you see.
The darkness washes towards her
like an avalanche. Like falling.
She would like to step forward into it
as if it were not a vacancy
but a destination,
leaving her body pulled off
and crumpled behind her like a sleeve.
I am the old woman
found always in stories like this one,
who says, Go back, my dear.
Back is into the cellar
where the worst is,
where the others are,
where you can see
what you would look like dead
and who wants it.
Then you will be free
to choose. To make
your way.
POSSIBLE ACTIVITIES
You could sit on your chair and pick over the language
as if it were a bowl of peas.
A lot of people do that.
It might be instructive.
You don't even need the chair,
you could juggle plates of air.
You could poke sticks through the chain-link fence
at your brain, which you keep locked up in there,
which crouches and sulks like an old tortoise,
and glares out at you, sluggish and eyeless.
You could tease it that way,
make it blunder and think,
and emit a croaking sound
you could call truth.
A harmless activity,
sort of like knitting,
until you go too far with it
and they bring out the nooses and matches.
Or you could do something else.
Something more sociable.
More group-oriented.
A lot of people do that too.
They like the crowds and the screaming,
they like the adrenalin.
Hunker down. Get a blackout curtain.
Pretend you're not home.
Pretend you're deaf and dumb.
Look: pitchforks and torches!
Judging from old pictures,
things could get worse.
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| Me, Lucia, and Anthony as cute kids in my grandma Billie Ann's old house in Lancaster Drive. circa 1990? |
