Gathering specimen in the journal:
crab grass, moss, red oak, burr…
it’s work that takes years out
in the field, abroad, distant from
my home and increasingly from
myself. (Was I ever so patient?)
Locals’ homes are small, filthy.
At night their windows flicker,
opal in a stony reef of eels
and it seems so much like home.
(I must write that in the journal.)
How alike they are! The natives
could all be the same person.
I can feel them watching
from the fields of blue alfalfa,
as suspicion becomes curiosity
and then… I must concern them.
Even I would be anxious.
A foreigner arrives, examines
every petty shrub and tree
like a witch, speaking into a
journal, making grave faces.
This is for the book, that’s all.
That’s all. Knowledge collected
opens a door; when exposed,
the truth succumbs. The universe
is a sunflower tracking the light
we bring, for you. Until then,
confusion, night—but my book
will open the bloom. Until then,
the palm burns. The heart is cut.
Razorwire rings the garden.
First appeared at the Philadelphia Review of Books website in May 2015.