Shaggy evergreens shrug and sway in a rainstorm.
Ezra Pound wasn't much for trees--Wordsworth-weary,
I suppose. Couldn't see history in or through them.
Instead he thought of rocks, layered, and of drills.
He was an American engineer. He wanted
comprehensive control of culture as if it were
acreage for the over-taking. Mineral rights.
But history's circulatory, and it's wet. It's
flexible, weird, and mysterious. Try to package
it, and you'll lose the magic. Impose upon
it, and it will flee like an Idaho mountain lion.
No, don't drill it, as if you were going
to set a charge, blast some ore. Receive
it easy like a storm, shrug and sway and stay
surprised by it, and you will have its way with you.
Copyright 2012 Hans Ostrom
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