Читать книгу Eventually One Dreams the Real Thing - Marianne Boruch - Страница 20

Divide

When elephants gather over a dead elephant

or crows above a crow ripped,

released by a hawk

or that cat online circling, lying down against

another cat still

so still — you’re dreaming this, aren’t you

bad dream? The room

shifts, the whole house stopped, one car

making its damaged

down-the-street a reverence.

When does grief become wonder?

To divide then, one part empty as the cocoon

a bagworm leaves on the stricken juniper

tight woven so beautiful

you’d never know its once-inside could

kill a thing this woody and pine-boughy and years

of its fragrance you walked by.

The other part —

all overflow get-rid-of-it,

grief unto wonder unto an offering

elephants bring huge in their delicate hovering,

their ridiculous tact, close

and closer, one cat

in vigil for another, sudden crows

quiet, a shatter no cry cry

winnows up.

Of course, explain. Of course they’re like us.

Unless we’re like them. And only when

words run and break apart and dissolve air

not even air anymore, breath

a rhythm, a backdrop — wait in wait, what’s

left in us hopeless a long time for

the fallen one to move.