Friday, February 1, 2013

Twice-Believing Creatures



Twice-Believing Creatures


Crickets sing the word "ceasing" electronically
in dirt and dry stalks.
A heavy black beetle turns his belly
to the cosmos, plucks with his six feet
at the needles of a darkening pine bough.
The Magician dances out of straw. He is Dusk;
he juggles the sun and the moon and the evening star.

Here and there a few are alert,
some curious, some thankful--like the deer,
weary of swishing horseflies away
from their backsides all day and hungry
after the heavy afternoon;--like the raccoon,
waddling off to make a living at the pond's edge;
--and the tireless child, the old man
who stands near his garden listening to the corn grow,
and the woman with her hands folded,
singing out loud to nobody.

They know that dusk takes today's body
and brings another after an interlude of dreaming.
They know nothing of the sort;
they are as dubious as the light at dusk.
They know the world to be as new
as the note of a gnat in the ear, as old
as the lizard's dry smirk,
a boulder's personality, darkness.


Hans Ostrom, 2013

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