(no subject)

[yuuago]

I like this. A lot. The final lines, of course, but also just... in general. It's like Marzanna and Veles together in one poem.

Love for Other Things

It’s easy to love a deer
But try to care about bugs and scrawny trees
Love the puddle of lukewarm water
From last week’s rain.
Leave the mountains alone for now.
Also the clear lakes surrounded by pines.
People are lined up to admire them.
Get close to the things that slide away in the dark.
Be grateful even for the boredom
That sometimes seems to involve the whole world.
Think of the frost
That will crack our bones eventually.

-Tom Hennen, from Darkness Sticks to Everything

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

This is great. If you really love the deer, you start knowing the deer, and you realize that the puddle of stagnant water, piles of dung, and wolves are necessary for healthy deer. You can't have the photogenic parts of nature without the hard work that billions of worms and bugs do under the surface, so eventually you start loving them all, because they're just parts of the same whole. And that ending is really comforting somehow.

LK

[yuuago]

Yesss, exactly! You can't have the charismatic bits without the... less... pleasant bits.

I don't know if I will ever be able to come around to loving mosquitoes, though. Or spiders. ;) But perhaps one should try.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, you don't have to love all the things in the same way. It's perfectly fine to love some things from a distance ;)

LK