Chasing a memory tonight

of driving in the Catskills
among thousands of trees
and thousands of whitetail deer
under the infinite cloud of stars
called the Milky Way

Top speed on the narrow roads
was reduced to
as slow as possible

Over half the houses were empty
Many abandoned and neglected
Others shuttered but well kept

and the Milky Way
as bright as it should always be
out there
so far from the city 

broadly strung horizon to horizon
thick and visible enough to reinforce
how empty the woods were
of everything but trees and deer

who did not move 
when headlights hit them
their numbers giving them
the certainty and the confidence
to stand their ground

Counted 40 while I was stopped
by just one road-clogging herd

Creeping through close enough
to open a window
and (perhaps) touch one then
finding 15 around the next bend
and the next until
before I could reach my destination
I simply stopped counting 
in the low hundreds

I learned the next day from a local resident
that this was all dairy country once

Hundreds of farms in its heyday
now down to 35 in all of the county
Most of the rest were simply abandoned
and those pastures gone wild
were perfect habitat
for the whitetails
who had become so numerous
that there were fears
of a die-off coming soon
on the way to regaining 
balance

I am thinking of this tonight

while sitting here
dreading the morning news
because I have to try as well 
to recall a time when I saw
what it might be like if America
abandoned the land it liked to think of 
as its tamed birthright

and let that land re-invent itself
healing into a new balance
under a free and inviolate sky

You are asking me
not to wince when I am cut.
You are asking me 
not to curse in blinding pain.
You demand of me
the bow and scrape of etiquette
as I am blasted.
You suggest that this genocide
should be politely borne — no.

No, because

sometimes hope
is a broken storefront,
a glass storm, a fire
in a public street. 

No, because

sometimes survival
is strongest
when it is taken,
not requested.

No, because

asking me to fold my hands
and wait to die,

shunting me
to one side
instead of facing me directly
as I have always faced your knives,

patting my head
and sweetly speaking
that poison suggestion
that I compromise
in the face of an apocalypse 
that has been tailored for me alone,

are not things to be borne politely.

No, because
you cannot make me die
unnoticed.  No, because
if you kill me off,
at the very least
my loud extinction
will echo in your ears forever
and you will never
know peace 
again.

How are your doors holding up?
Has anything blown them off yet?

Some folks saw theirs take flight
a long time ago — centuries ago, in fact,

which doesn’t change
how much of a typhoon this is:

in a high wind such as this,
doors and roofs fly so easily.

So many of us are now exposed and afraid
that the structures won’t hold.

So many of us long exposed are excited
that walls are beginning to buckle. 

Of course, you could just decide
to go out and live in it. You could accept

that your hair will be messy
and your eyes will sting

for as long as you live. You could…
or you could shelter in place

and plan to rebuild. How 
are your doors, your roofs, your walls?

Do you have the tools you need,
do you have the patience to stand in this wind?

There’s some joy in having
such choices to make. It’s not like

they aren’t the same choices
that have always been laid before us,

but some of us have had stronger walls
than others. Some of us have never had to think

about our doors at all.  Some of us
never even knew they were there

until the wind picked up and we saw them
unhinge and begin to rise.

There’s no hope,
you know,

except for the hope we make 
in spite of hopelessness.

It’s an action verb no matter
what grammar claims for it. So:

as much of a cliche
as it is — there’s no depth

to the observation
as it is, we can only

add depth through
pure and bright work —

we are responsible 
for our hope as much as

for breathing clean air
and drinking clean water

and protecting them both
as we can.  The idea of hope

unpolluted by despair
is all we have as we are all we have.

We hope. We must, we have,
we will, we will have hoped

regardless of outcome. And if
and when hope requires us

to act, we will act, we act, we will
be able to say we acted. We hope

to have acted. We hope
it will work. 

because there is no time
for frivolous things 
in this killing moment
we must dance

for who will dance
if we do not

because there is no time
for our leisure
when all around us is industry
and labor
we must sit our asses down
and refuse to work

for who will recall the joy of rest
if we do not

because there is no time
for art and creation
as repulsion and nausea
dominate our senses
we must take up pen and brush
and fight 

for what will the future think of us
if we let those fall
from our hands

if we let
this grinding moment of horror
take from us
what is most holy and human
if we cannot dance
if we cannot create 
if we cannot rest
satisfied that we have done
the necessary work of our souls

what will be left
for the future
to fight for

At the exact moment
you realize that you
have no choice or chance
unless you shoot back,

you will look sideways up from the floor
where you’ve flattened yourself
in order to save your own life
and see through a broken window

a single leaf on a branch.
It will be surely already dead
but have some color left in it,
red spots in dry brown perhaps

or some slight green remaining
overall, and you will surge within
and let go of your own stubborn grip
upon a semblance of being truly alive

and look around
for something, anything,
with which to fill your
suddenly freed hand.

There is a car in my driveway
that will not run. My neighbor
got it for free and plans to make it work
someday. Someday. Right now 
it’s a small white wreck with four flats
and a college parking sticker 
from five years ago in the front window,
but it looks like a promise to my neighbor
that someday it will be the best deal
he ever made.  

There is a thin coat of white
on all the cars in the driveway.
One red (that’s mine), one black (that one is
my lover’s car), and my neighbor’s white wreck
which looks cleaner now that it’s coated in snow.
Someday there will be a full storm — or so
we’re told. No telling when, of course. The weather
has been a lie for years now; we have turned it
into one big lie. Someday all three cars
will be mounds of pure white
to be dug free, but right now 
that’s just a threat and instead we’ve got two
that are ready to roll and one that isn’t,
two that run and one that doesn’t.
Mine is one of the ones that runs 
right now, and while I know someday
it will stop, that day, I hope,
is still far off.

There’s a fear in the air right now,
but someday it won’t be there. Someday
all these broken cars will run like tops
and all these promises will spring into life.
My neighbor will get that scrap heap to run
and off he’ll go, a smile on his face. My car will hold
until I can get another one just as good or better,
and my lover’s car will do the same.
The snow will come and settle and melt
on schedule as expected.  Right now
no one’s got a clue about what’s to come,
about when someday might at last slip into place
and bring a dose of hope at last.
Until then we’ll keep these wrecks running
and dig out when we have to

until someday, when we’ll sit down
and sigh and cry and laugh
about how we got through
right now. Not today, no — 
but someday.  

When I was a bomb,
I destroyed though
I longed to build; instead
I gutted and burned and 
swept away.

When I was a bayonet,
I couldn’t imagine how
I had happened — how
I’d found myself
at barrel’s end, how
I stuck, how I was freed
with a blast right after.

When I was poison
I slept uneasily, like an empty coffin;
when I was a guillotine,
I felt a breeze sift that hair
as it tumbled down.

I used to pretend to be
oblivious to myself as damage
but truth be told: it has always been 
my entire being and life to be
utterer of death
in order to preserve myself…

so I weep and gnash my teeth
and wash my hands of
generations of stains, 

all while
never moving from
my throne.

Mourn your dead till daylight
slips in through your window, then
take a shovel out back,
bury them deep in a corner
with a stone in full view of all,
and move on.

There will be more dead.
(There already are
more dead.) This is not arguable;
if you mourn for all your remaining days
there will still be more dead. Your mourning
stops nothing except your own forward surge
toward an adjusted world. A modified
society — believe no one

who tells you it’s perfectible. People
aren’t, so it will never be,
and as long as Power knows
deaths can maintain or advance
this current version of acceptable,
there will be more dead.

So: if these dead are yours, mourn them.
Mourn if you want for those other dead
and all who fell as bystanders,
cross-fire heroes, accidental bodies,
friendly fired cadavers. Mourn them
and mourn in advance
for your own inevitable ending,

then plant it all and leave it to grow
a garden full of endings for you to come home to
after a day of struggle for a new start. Both
will be there for as long as you live. Mourning
and struggle will each outlast you.
This is not arguable.
This is how it works.

How do you eat an elephant?
One bite at a time.

It helps to have
gigantic teeth.

Of course, if possible
you kill it first.

But if you’re big enough,
perhaps you needn’t. 

Does that sound awful?
It is awful.  There’s no way around that.

But honestly, you might have to eat it
while it’s still alive.

While you’re thinking about that,
consider how you’ll stop it from moving

long enough to get those bites in.
No matter how large your teeth, 

you can’t eat it while it runs.
You’re going to have to stop it

from running.  Bring it
to at least a crawl so you can

get a leg up on it
and open your mouth.

Also, can you make that first bite
count toward the slowdown and stopping?

Think on these things, but not 
for too long.  It’s charging

and it’s huge. Tremendous, 
really. But remember, 

it’s made of meat. Aren’t you hungry? 
Hungry enough to at least try?