The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.
—Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
Dear World,
Thank you for breaking me.
The rabbit brush are in full bloom.
Yellow in the field. Yesterday
I mowed the edges of the drive
and as a matter of course
I mowed whatever rabbit brush
was in my path. The air
smelled so good then,
a clean, sharp scent,
almost like sage,
only softer.
I have not been very good.
I have not been very gentle.
I have not been very brave.
But I have been sincere.
And I have loved.
There was a time when
I wanted to weed all the rabbit brush
from the field. I wanted only field grass.
I would wait for it to rain for days,
then pull up as much rabbit brush as I could.
World, I have not been very good.
And you have broken me so perfectly—
always leading me to just the right place
for falling apart. World, how do you do that?
The rabbit brush always come back
and eventually I learned to leave them
wherever they leap up. And eventually I learned
to find them beautiful.
I have not been very gentle, world.
I have taken what I wanted, sometimes mercilessly.
And you take every opportunity to kill me,
sometimes with fear, sometimes
with great or small beauty.
Yellow. Yellow. Yellow.
Thousands of yellow hands
all waving each time I arrive.
World, I have not been very brave.
I am not like Hemingway. When the war comes
I try to hide. And still you come to kill me
like a warrior, like a soldier,
only much, much slower.
The rabbit brush does not mind drought.
It thrives in cracked, parched soil.
The rabbit brush does not mind the rain.
It thrives. It thrives.
I can’t say I like being broken, world.
I can’t say I like being killed.
But you do it so well and I do admire
your insuperable skill. Keep killing me,
world, keep breaking me. Keep finding
my flaws. Press until I crack.
I am broken, dying, thriving. I am waving
at you waving back.
awesome today. kudos
i’m sending a great gift as a forwarded email. these are writings of a friend whose daughter died 5 yrs ago and how he has found his way back to life. we’re making a chapbook for bereaved parents and other human beings who are confused by the way th eworld breaks them(us) namaste’
“Who would prefer the jingle of jade pendants when once he has heard stone growing in a cliff?” Lao Tzu
The power of Poetry http://www.powerofpoetry.org
and
Red Thread Gold Thread http://www.redthreadgoldthread.com
I don’t want to be saved, I want to be spent. -Fritz Perls
I’m remembering your Aug 18th poem, All There Is To Say, where you brought Eucharistic imagery into a lovers’ relationship:
“…but today the challenge to move beyond habit,
beyond rote into simple communion
by breaking not bread but ourselves,…”
You once fought the chamisa/rabbit brush until you discovered it’s gonna thrive no matter the weather, no matter your attempts to extract and exterminate it.
“…And down in lovely muck I’ve lain, 35
Happy till I woke again.
Then I saw the morning sky:
Heigho, the tale was all a lie;
The world, it was the old world yet,
I was I, my things were wet, 40
And nothing now remained to do
But begin the game anew.”
-AE Houseman, “Terence, This Is Stupid Stuff”
Mmm, I love that Houseman quote, didn’t know it before … Lovely. Thanks! Love the Perls quote, too …
Thanks Eduardo
Good one. I love the shuttle back and forth between the conversation with the world and plague and plenty of the rabbit brush. And I just read A Moveable Feast, so the Hemingway quote was perfect for me. The “waving” was indeed the way to go, my favorite stanza with the Yellow Yellow Yellow, and then again at the end. Of course, now all I can hear is Elmer Fudd singing, Kill the Rabbit Brush…
That would be … Kill the wabbit bwush 🙂