Post by louisa on Nov 27, 2008 1:05:51 GMT 2
No Reason
by Leatha Kendrick
Submitted by Sherry Chandler
“No Reason” bears witness to the madness of the last several decades -- drugs, global warming, scientific fiddling with DNA, war, terrorism, abuse of prisoners – and brings it all home to our own bedrooms where we’re trying to live ordinary lives, looking out our windows at the “strands of sunlight / tangled in time and a pine tree.” That detail makes me catch my breath, it’s such an extraordinary perception of the ordinary. We too are trapped in time, as ephemeral as the cicada, as out of place as the garbage-raiding baby skunk, who is protected by her stink and needs no concept of self-respect. What is the worth of a cicada, of a green neon rabbit, of “caged” men? The men, as trapped in time as the sunlight in the pine, write poetry with a “cracked thumbnail,” another heart-stopping detail. The speaker who “fails” to get out of bed connects to the women who sit by hospital beds, all “longing / for the ordinary”, women who mourn, who sit vigil over the sick and the wounded, children ripped apart by bombs or by “searing” nature. All of this culminates in the two boys, who are the same boy, and this poem invites us to look at both of his avatars with great compassion. We are invited to see the two sides of “No Reason,” to experience the profound pun, to turn with the poet from the unreason of competition and war into the unreason of life.
Poem: "No Reason" by Leatha Kendrick from Second Opinion: Poems (David Robert Books, 2008). Reprinted by permission of the author.
Chosen by Sherry Chandler
NO REASON
On the phone line,
the tv screen, the front page
sad news--the daughter’s addiction, the car bombing,
the lying. This morning I’m staying inside.
The world looks
so much better from a distance—
say, through my window, where strands of sunlight
tangled in time and a pine tree say nothing
of war or searing weather
or my failure to get out of bed. What is a pine
or a cicada worth, though?
or the baby skunk
who haunts the garbage bin at night,
her fringed tail both decoration and warning, her stink
something any self-respecting girl ought
to be ashamed of?
We’re all just here,
serving up breakfast, walking to the next
appointment, wishing we could make
the next small decision
and that it might actually matter,
when just the fact that we’re alive and trying
is enough.
Here we all are hanging
our wounds out to dry, trying to speak
truth to power, as the Quakers say,
while the world goes on,
being exactly what it is.
Somewhere an artist is trying to top Alba,
the green neon rabbit, coaxing some genetic designer
into inserting a jellyfish’s
phosphorescence
into, perhaps, a peacock this time,
and somewhere else men sit
in solitary cages, making poetry to stay sane, writing
with a cracked thumbnail on anything soft, and
women sit by hospital beds
for months,
years, filled with longing
for the ordinary. A boy
learns to build a bomb and a young man learns
to bathe his new baby. They each know
how to laugh. Sometimes
they’re happy
for no reason at all.
Read more about the poet at:
leathakendrick.com/
by Leatha Kendrick
Submitted by Sherry Chandler
“No Reason” bears witness to the madness of the last several decades -- drugs, global warming, scientific fiddling with DNA, war, terrorism, abuse of prisoners – and brings it all home to our own bedrooms where we’re trying to live ordinary lives, looking out our windows at the “strands of sunlight / tangled in time and a pine tree.” That detail makes me catch my breath, it’s such an extraordinary perception of the ordinary. We too are trapped in time, as ephemeral as the cicada, as out of place as the garbage-raiding baby skunk, who is protected by her stink and needs no concept of self-respect. What is the worth of a cicada, of a green neon rabbit, of “caged” men? The men, as trapped in time as the sunlight in the pine, write poetry with a “cracked thumbnail,” another heart-stopping detail. The speaker who “fails” to get out of bed connects to the women who sit by hospital beds, all “longing / for the ordinary”, women who mourn, who sit vigil over the sick and the wounded, children ripped apart by bombs or by “searing” nature. All of this culminates in the two boys, who are the same boy, and this poem invites us to look at both of his avatars with great compassion. We are invited to see the two sides of “No Reason,” to experience the profound pun, to turn with the poet from the unreason of competition and war into the unreason of life.
Poem: "No Reason" by Leatha Kendrick from Second Opinion: Poems (David Robert Books, 2008). Reprinted by permission of the author.
Chosen by Sherry Chandler
NO REASON
On the phone line,
the tv screen, the front page
sad news--the daughter’s addiction, the car bombing,
the lying. This morning I’m staying inside.
The world looks
so much better from a distance—
say, through my window, where strands of sunlight
tangled in time and a pine tree say nothing
of war or searing weather
or my failure to get out of bed. What is a pine
or a cicada worth, though?
or the baby skunk
who haunts the garbage bin at night,
her fringed tail both decoration and warning, her stink
something any self-respecting girl ought
to be ashamed of?
We’re all just here,
serving up breakfast, walking to the next
appointment, wishing we could make
the next small decision
and that it might actually matter,
when just the fact that we’re alive and trying
is enough.
Here we all are hanging
our wounds out to dry, trying to speak
truth to power, as the Quakers say,
while the world goes on,
being exactly what it is.
Somewhere an artist is trying to top Alba,
the green neon rabbit, coaxing some genetic designer
into inserting a jellyfish’s
phosphorescence
into, perhaps, a peacock this time,
and somewhere else men sit
in solitary cages, making poetry to stay sane, writing
with a cracked thumbnail on anything soft, and
women sit by hospital beds
for months,
years, filled with longing
for the ordinary. A boy
learns to build a bomb and a young man learns
to bathe his new baby. They each know
how to laugh. Sometimes
they’re happy
for no reason at all.
Read more about the poet at:
leathakendrick.com/