by Peter Grandbois
What I am trying to say is that long ago I walked into a field. What I mean is that long ago I had a choice. Or rather, somewhere in the middle of my life I was lost and by lost I mean I walked into a field. I guess what I’m getting at is that sometimes touch is better than walking, but sometimes walking is all we have, and so we enter a field, and all the trees are bowing, and crows like ghosts tear at the lucid sky, and we can only be so fierce so we steal away from the one body we have. What I’m trying to say is that sometimes I have these dreams where I’m back in the field, and I’m not walking anymore because I’ve found my body, and there are no crows to tear at the sky, or rather I am the crow tearing through cave-dark night, and I can’t see my body because everything is so black and my feathers so black, so I just fly, but it feels like I’m not flying, more like I’m floating in all that darkness, and then I wake. I can no longer choose night, no longer think about the moon and the way it turns one into the other or the fact that soon enough the day will be a ruin. Can you hear me now? Can you understand? What I’m trying to explain is why when we walk together, when you and I walk together, and I see a bird, my first instinct is to pick up a stone.
Peter Grandbois is the author of twelve books, the most recent of which is Everything Has Become Birds (Brighthorse 2020). His poems, stories, and essays have appeared in over one hundred journals. His plays have been nominated for several New York Innovative Theatre Awards and have been performed in St. Louis, Columbus, Los Angeles, and New York. He is poetry editor at Boulevard magazineand teaches at Denison University in Ohio. You can find him at www.petergrandbois.com.
Commentaires