READING,
[#31]
“Glancing Backward” by Thalia Field.
“Glancing Backward” by Thalia Field.
on the sinking ark, look for the elephants first and drop them overboard before anyone else.
—Vilfredo Pereto
- We also say earth is “like a person”
- a hypothesis — another goddess —
- hold up, Gaia, it will only take a minute (more or less)
- in geothermal time
- — to wake — any second now!
- to tally what is spent and not repaid —
- a kind of carbon song-cycle on a televised talent contest.
- Emancipation says, release from the hand —
- all who can fly
- all who can run
- and crawl, worms, into unchewed boreal leaf-litter —
- where bees can’t follow disoriented Orpheus,
- his self-serving crooning, his pretend
- not-knowing where madness lies
- between flower and fruit.
- And from whatever self-proclaimed God’s fat fist
- — ex manus capere —
- do we expect release,
- when mighty Zeus sits hoarding bullion and fresh-water,
- blocking the clean-up crew from his trashed hotel room.
- And tired Atlas drops the ball, to chase imaginary dragons
- rather than uphold Minnie, Beulah, and Karen —
- elephant plaintiffs before the High Court
- seeking release from the daily, greedy circus —
- Judge: “Their petition is wholly frivolous.”
- And while pending appeal, Beulah falls on her side
- at the Big E fair in Springfield, Mass and dies.
- Killed by those who say they love animals,
- (so many of us love animals)
- another empire killed by those who pretend to defend it.
- What simple rule did we ignore?
- What moment past the tipping point?
- Which magic word?
Photograph by Jill Alibrandi; excerpt from Thalia Field’s Personhood, forthcoming from New Directions.