The Peristalsis of Going to Get my Mail Last Thursday

I started this poem on October 9, 2020 and today it was published by Silver Birch Press. Staggering is still moving forward!

Living in the woods

has taught me

to notice small things:

the pollen veil cascading

from the pine

by the wood pile

in spring,

a squirrel’s upset tail

as acorns stop falling,

or the moment a wooly worm,

staggering through October’s

first cold snap,

stops to eye me:

friend, food, or god?

So titanic must I be to it—

as it puzzles through its first life

of constant need,

before the freeze and the flight,

to dream of wings buried deep

amongst the cruel and

incomprehensible oracles

of brown and black—

a mountain upon which it will

never glean understanding.

Behemoth me: ineffable,

compassionless, but a mirror too,

when I stop to watch

a fuzzy little creature

strive beyond reckoning.