Instead of telling him I am angry,
never mind what it was, it was
nothing much, but I was angry.
And did I tell him? No. I went outside
and shoveled snow and told the driveway
all about it. Told the sky as it changed
from gray to blue. Told the empty
cottonwood branches. Told the missing moon.
*
The snake coiled up her arm
and round her nape, around
her face. It was red and gold and black
and never rested in one place. It twined
around her torso, round her jaw
and round her back. I watched
the woman as she sat there, eyes closed,
arms and spine relaxed.
*
A question I have never asked
but someone else asked for me
and printed the study for all to read.
Why do birds live longer than turtles?
Not the mass. Not the heart rate.
The resting metabolic figures only somewhat correlate.
It’s how much energy they expend
over their lifetime. The answers to this study
come slow.
*
Hopping mad. Glopping mad.
Splopping, troppling, blopping mad.
Hard to be mad when
you’re rhyming nonsense
with nonsense.
That didn’t stop me.
*
In the story the sage
talks about the knowledgeable man.
When the deadly snake twists up
his arm, he thinks to himself,
This snake could kill me. I should
brush it off. The wise man
doesn’t think at all. He simply
brushes it off.
*
Who is the one who thinks
she is angry? And who is the one
that notices her?
*
A straight line of black
through the snow. A wider
straight line of black
through the snow. A whole
driveway of black pavement
lined with snow.
*
I do not want to outlive
the Galapagos Tortoise
who lives a projected 170 years.
But I do want to live
long enough to learn
to love you better.
*
Don’t let it touch me,
don’t let it touch me I think,
and then it is happening
already the snake is moving
around my wrist, my elbow,
my armpit. Don’t move,
I think. Too late to brush
it away. Sit still, I think.
Relax. Expend no energy.
*
Snake. Bake. Cake. Lake.
Smake. Trake. Grake. Sprake.
*
The anger is real and then
it is gone. The woman is real
and she is still here. The snake
was a fiction and still
it is twisting around the woman
who stands in the drive and watches
the sky as it turns from blue to gray again.
It seems to happen slow.
She only has 2.25 billion heartbeats left
if she is lucky.
She tells the drive she wants to make the most
of every one.
Wow! For me this piece reminds me of the gift of grace within the struggle!
Very powerful and lovely!
Thank you for the reminder
Nice that it’s a long poem for the lengthening days. I like the return throughout to that opening anger, which is my favorite stanza. I’m a bit confused by the study about birds and turtles. The stanza seems to conclude that birds live longer: “Why do birds live longer than turtles?” I would think the opposite is true, that turtles live longer, and that seems to be the answer you approach in the poem too, that slowness rules, but that stanza says the study says birds live longer. Curious.
“It’s how much energy THEY expend” — grammar says THEY refers to the birds, not the turtles.
Oh my! It’s been almost 6 years since you wrote this poem, and I’m just reading it. It moves me. I can see the woman processing, distracting, devasted, pissed off, laughing, pissed again…on and on. It captures the felt sense. Damn R, you nailed it. Love and Namaste, Augusta
oh wow. thanks for bringing it back to me. I remember it so well, though not at all what I was mad about. that is gone. but the memory of it, the story of the snake, the stomping around. Yeah, i remember that. xoxo
So I wonder, dear poet, journey-er, and friend, what do you know now about the woman that was stomping and the snake that was twisting? When you listen to them now, six years later, what do they tell you?
Maybe questions for when we’re together? I just see them as such tangible teachers!!! I want to know more!
My prying is only my curiosity about the lessons that hindsight reveals when only the “essence” or energetic sense of a time remains. The reality of it all is only facts about a time and place. The residue is the Teacher when our compassion can pick it up and ask, “so what is it you wanted me to know?” I ramble. I’m just so damn moved by this story’s energy.
Love and Namasté my friend.
I love this … what an invitation. I’ll have to do some sincere inner querying …