#AmericanWriters
Hunkered down, nerve-numb, in the carnal hut, the cave of self, while outside a storm rages.
I stood inside myself like a dead tree or a tower. I pulled the rope of braided hair and high above me
God planned a static planet, With plants that bore No offspring—as if Acts had no consequence. But Eve was there to change
To the trees, leaving Came naturally— A green extension Of their being. But for Adam and Eve
In Eden, Adam Had been so busy Making up smug Nouns of dominion, He hadn’t watched
The deer carcass hangs from a raft… Wrapped in blankets, a boy keeps w… from a pile of loose hay. Then he… and dreams about a death that is c… Inside him, there are small bones
As the sheriff remarked: I had no business being there. He was right, but for the wrong reasons. Among that odd crew of volunteers from the North, I was by far the most inept and least ...
Now we must get up quickly, dress ourselves, and run away. Because it surrounds us, because they are coming with wolves on lea… because I stood just now at the wi…
God wanted labels That would stick To fur or bark or leaf. Hadn’t he given Adam A tongue?
Grieving came from leaving Eden But leaving Eden was not grief— It was a lesson in lessening— How things, diminishing, Become more precious.
Here’s a seed. Food for a week. Cow skull in the pasture; back room where the brain was: spacious hut for me.
My parents and the parents of others were pillars of meat the sky’s blue roof rested on. Around them grew flowers with stalks so thin they bent
Snapping turtles in the pond eat b… and frogs. They do us no harm when… But early this spring two Canada… lingered, then built a nest. What… heard of, our neighbor feared: gos…
How beautiful they were, Adam thought— These beasts and birds; These tall grasses And flowering trees.
Nouns were a giant Confining— Adam felt the sounds He made Build bars around
