Читать книгу Otherworld, Underworld, Prayer Porch - David Bottoms - Страница 9

Studying the Small Hill

Sometimes when my wife and daughter are asleep

I stumble outside

with our dog at three or four in the morning to piss in the yard.

In winter the moon scorches the tree branches,

and in summer it frosts the hillside

with a shabby glaze.

Then the bird feeders standing in the smudged shadows

of the maples

look like human skulls impaled on poles —

and sometimes wind and crickets and tree frogs

make lurid voices in the trees.

This is when I empty myself of anger and resentment,

and listen to them puddle

in the grass at my feet.

Jack runs the fence line and trots out

of the shadows, panting, to piss in the grass beside me.

Often in his eyes there is more to envy

than anything human,

and gauging the frantic influence

of the moon, I study the small hill bleeding shadows.

It’s easy then to affirm the Christ metaphor

and all the tenuous ways

tenderness seeps into the world.