The Village Ahead of You

When I was in grad school and I needed to write a poem, I'd often give myself a prompt. I'd write from a work of art or I'd give myself a list of words to include in order to spice up my diction. Sometimes I made the limits more rigid: meter, rhyme, number of lines, number of words in a line, etc. Often I invented a speaker and made myself write a poem from the person's point of view. During my first year at Iowa I decided to write from the perspective of a mother who knew she was going to die soon. I imagined a daughter, what I might say to her. I imagined a modern, less-wind-baggy version of Polonius. I wrote the poem on Palm Sunday.

Today is Palm Sunday and I want to give the poem to you. I don't think I'm going to die immanently but being a parent makes me far more aware that I am already in the process of doing so. Lists of advice are futile but comforting too. I'm not the speaker of this poem, Thiz, my list for you would be different, but a part of me is in this poem too. So here you are.

[Note: this poem was published in "The Cresset" a number of years ago. I think I'm allowed to re-print as long as I mention that.]

THE VILLAGE AHEAD OF YOU

I am not sure how this ends. If the body

dissolves or is taken up, if the roof of sky

feels like cellophane or moss.

When I was five I wanted to be a hen so

at a petting zoo I reached below one

to collect an egg. Her quills were stiff

and the vanes were damp and warm, sticking

a little to my knuckles. She didn’t peck

or squirm or try to stop me. There’s something of Abraham

and Isaac in this. You should know

I would never have collected sticks to burn you.

Patty says she’d collect only green ones but Patty

likes to please everyone. I love you

more than God and I do not

accept the parts of the story where

bodies are taken up with a greater

plan in mind. You should love your home.

Lot’s wife did not turn back to watch

fire spitting from the shoulders and hair

of those who followed; she looked back

at her house and at her pasture.

Land gets taken up by fire too and possessions

are not always wrong. Wear something comfortable.

Sleep with my nightgown. Don’t try to look

after anyone else. Every town has a bell, bells

return us to ourselves. The second time

your father left I flew to Quito and was miserable.

It was Palm Sunday so I stood with a crowd

at the back of a cathedral. A girl gave me

a cross woven out of palm leaves, grit

at the corners of her eyes and brown, milky

irises. A basket filled with crosses

hung from each of her arms and she wore pink

bedroom slippers over thick brown socks.

She stood in front of me a long time, I thought

because of blindness. I was too sad to know

I was supposed to pay her. It is difficult to be happy

knowing the way that story ends. The point

is that we sing the songs and lay the palm leaves

down, that we turn to gaze at the man who sits

halfway up the mountain with his head between his knees.

I believe we will know when the time comes

what it means to crouch beside him, using both our hands

to raise his face to ours.