full of gnats, mites, and, of course, my take on those "crickety-looking things" forever chirping around us . . . .
-- Suzanne
_________________________________________________________________________________
Witness
Lately
I’ve slowed the speeding day
by fixing my gaze
on the smallest
things:
gnats the shape of an eyelash,
mites minute
as grains
of salt.
Tonight
it’s a crickety-looking thing.
Bent legged.
Pale-green translucent
wings. No larger than
a crumb
of morning toast, & too near
the drain where I brush
my teeth.
I’m a fool
for tiny lives — admiring
their silence. I’ve
borne them
away from daily harm
on
paper scraps
slid
under wings,
crushing
them,
at times,
with well-meant
kindness . . . before making it
clumsily
down the steps,
& out
to the garden
where I try to place them
on something
green.
Like this one
that seems too
slight
to survive my
touch,
& I can’t stand here
all night long!
So into the kitchen,
rinse & spit,
then back again
for one last look.
It’s
gone.
Oh tiny
breathing thing,
godspeed!
I really
meant to save
myself
& don’t, for certain, know
from what. But you?
If you’ve
dared to hop
or creep
or flit
into another
night, I’ll
trust my own small life
once more to dark
& sleep.________________________________________________________________________________
Overlook; overlooked; so tiny. How our lives so often are surrendered to human “stuff”. I often feel the preciousness of these minute creatures. This Red Eft collaboration is outside of many people’s imagination and grasp of – what is life. Sensitive, touching, revealing.
ReplyDeleteI have, at hand, a thin but firm piece of cardboard, at the ready, for creatures to ride on to a better place outside.
This is one of my very favorites of Red Eft Editions. Like Dan, I usually labor over these immediate small life issues that seem threatening at times but then, it's always my choice to stand back and question the friend or foe issue when it comes to my garden crop and the small life that lives within. I'm not always certain I've done the right thing, either. Dan just says it here it a way I can't. Love the video, too. It's a joyful collaboration you two have and a real treat to absorb upon reading and re-absorb when gardening. That's what really good poems do. They keep visiting.
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