City Kid Pastoral
Flashlight under my right arm
in the dead of night, I half-sprint
back to my cottage clapping
twice to scare the deer, though
I am scared, which seems
like a case of whoever smelt it,
dealt it. City kid thick
in the woods of
ferns & fungus,
I’ve traveled six hours
for the gift of space & time,
this residency a reprieve
from the taxi cab’s
racket & ruckus
of 21st century dings.
So, here’s the deal:
I’ve spent 20 minutes
trying to shoo a fat bee
out of my room through
a small gap in the screen.
Its striped body crawling up
& further away from the opening,
& normally, I would’ve ended
the inconvenience by now, but
I’m in the Adirondacks!
Where such things seem extreme,
noticed. Where at night
the loons & coyotes
exchange hot verses
over the lake & every writer
swears they can tell them apart,
but they can’t. Where it’s so quiet
I can hear the dragonfly’s
small motor hum
on the dock while reading
Solmaz Sharif’s essay
on Erasure, which she argues
is a colonial act of obliteration.
The Bee is working my last nerve.
I scoop the little prick
three, maybe four times toward
the peephole, away from
my cheap impulse
to smash it & before I lose
my patience, someone remind me:
kindness is not a favor. It is perhaps
what Aracelis proposes: recognition.
Besides, the little nugget
is just a big ass fly masquerading
in a black & gold uniform.
Let’s call them, nature’s referee!
But I’m still itching for ruin
and now, my palm grows
smaller, so small it could
thread the screen,
meanwhile
the coyote-loons cackle,
the bee’s tush
wiggles & I wonder,
how often I’ve crawled
against my own survival.
What little mercies worked
their ways beyond my sight?
My precious Bee, forgive me.
If I know cruelty, I’ve practiced that English
on myself first.
Besides, what do I know about beauty? Everything
I love is alive and terrifying.
***
Author photo by David Evan McDowell
