Try to praise the mutilated world
—Adam Zagajewski
The cratered earth
and the blood stained shirts
and the men with guns
and the hate sharp words
and the sour rooms
that never see sun
and the rashes, the cancers
the blackened lungs
and still, there are paths
in Ohio woods
where upended trees
show elaborate roots
and the water seeps
in the ancient gorge,
and dead leaves fuel
whole dominions of soil
and though beauty
can be hard to reconcile,
worse to ignore it,
worse to look away,
worse in this mutilated world
to pretend we don’t have
ten thousand times ten thousand
reasons to praise.
Thank you for being in Ohio and letting her be in you. You find so much, inside and out, always.
i love it here so much … feel so so so grateful to come every year and play in Hocking Hills
Yes! To praise the beauty. To see clearly the carnage. To hold both in truth and to work to make beauty and wholeness be the powers to take forth.
you state the paradox so well.
Thank you Rosemerry … May it be …