“Birds sing
after a storm; why shouldn’t people feel as free to delight in whatever
sunlight remains to them?” – Rose Fitzgerald
Kennedy
The world weeps
for the Wild Woman.
“Your blooming days are gone,
they tell her. “Life gutted you
and Death is flying in to fill
your sky, balance
dangling from its beak. You are
afraid of the end, we
understand you just too well.”
The Wild Woman shows how
she
has crafted gardens out of her wounds.
But
the world’s eyes are wept shut. Still,
the
Wild Woman speaks her truth, and hopes
for
working ears:
The world weeps and weeps
for the Wild Woman
they can’t see.
a not-so-wee
note…
- since I know that some of us are much
too human to keep from drawing certain conclusions out of poetry, I should
clarify that I am not dying just yet (at least, not more than any other
living thing). This poem was inspired by a recurrent theme in my life: the
way some people continue to tell me that they understand why I would
want to curse the whole world. I keep telling them that I don’t want to curse
the world—certain presumably human creatures? Maybe. But not the world—I
enjoy the world. Projection is a curious thing. I do wonder how much happier
some of us would be if we took the time to see, accept, and embrace the reality
in front of us, and dwell less in the doom and gloom preconceptions can paint
over our eyes.
