Crisis is supposed to bring us together, isn’t it? Or tear us apart? Or fling us off the earth into space? Seems like almost anything is possible, and even otherwise reasonable people are beginning to fray around the edges. Blame coronavirus, blame social unrest, blame summer heat or solar flares. There’s probably no one explanation. And yet, what’s a neighbor to do? Anything?
Today’s poem is a mini-view of the micro-manner in which the world is unraveling yet the extent is so small and unimportant it’s not even noticeable, even neighbor to neighbor.
Hey Neighbor
All along we’ve waited for Spring
and now it’s just sparks, shouts, fire.
What does anything matter?
Who would bother with these words
that change nothing? Not even I
am straightened, corrected.
The neighbors bring their dogs
daily to piss on our lawn. She
said it was just that the isolation
didn’t help any. No, it’s not territorial.
Huh. I suppose anyone can believe
a lie. Watching my dog watch theirs,
his sense of outrage growing.
Our window is not enough
to hold him back. Nor the flimsy
leashes the so-called neighbors
use to walk their nasty
beasts. Every dog knows
the difference between home and not.
They know the sound of truth, too.
Pretty up your yard with a few buddleias.
Put a pot of pink begonias out.
Mow the lawn. Your dog still waits,
by the drive, crouching, snarling
your sharp hate. And our dog, too,
curls a lip, bares a tooth,
lets a deep rumble roll free.
When is it the right / write time?
I’ve been “saving up” poems because with the coronavirus…and then everything since…it never felt the right time to publish. But all log jams eventually break free. Is this a bad time to publish poems? Is there ever a right time? Probably the right time can only be known in retrospect. Like timing purchases in the stock market, putting out poetry is an inexact science. Perhaps it’s better to just get out there and act? More considerations on this topic here—see also my post regarding a recent Tracy K. Smith podcast.
Missed a poem? Links to prior poems can be found on this page.