Evelyn Reilly
Will we stop the destruction of the Earth … [or] enter a new era of its history, cheerfully called by some the Anthropocene, a time for and all about our one species alone. I prefer to call it the Age of Loneliness.
—E. O. Wilson
Book of bark
Self as lichen
corsage
some dusty
powder on a rock
perhaps
a little shrub
Growth may mean
a piece breaks off
which may or
may not
then continue
as the same
individual
Two might merge
into each other
becoming
the same organism
within a group
for which
such distinctions
have no significance
Who stands
in these woods
feeling feelings
taught by the German
Romantic tradition
remembering once
having written
Self's name on a wall
with a handful
of glowing insects?
(So much
peacefulness
to disrupt
Meister Johann
von Goethe)
Storms of internet
outrage keep
bringing down
one dead limb
after another
while dark fruit
still sways
in remaining
winds
This poem
was just overtaken
by This Bitter Earth
sung by Dinah
Washington
What good is love?
mmmm
in such ruined
landscapes
with their
silenced canopies
and emptied
branches
What good is love?
mmmm
that leaves
us just
our glowing
solitude?
mmmm