Embedded Files
left behind
buried somewhere within us
a detector of lurking curses breaks—
forgetting our blessings
who gave them to us
and why.
some curses never hit us properly
launched years ago
by people who forgot us.
in the dreams of these people
we do not appear—
neither as background animals
nor as slight misgivings.
forgetting intentionally
is still forgetting.
it’s not on purpose at first
that we leave things behind
but when we notice
it becomes so
if we refuse to go back
having become too severed—
part now of the universe
in which we are open to loss
and forcing strangers to take
from a shifty category
that isn’t quite gift.
weak knots
a permeated post nation packs old syllables
around new ailments for evocative configuration
in lost battles waged for low stakes.
we are given wigs, cowered or capered for
then begin adjudicating. curiosity stays away
dining on unlabeled savory cakes.
then there are feathers because something
struck a bird or plucked one or it molted.
what if we saw more wavelengths,
smelled more molecules, weathered better,
stretched our palettes, put more things
back together?
what if we tried harder, blooming twice maybe
once before spring has really come and again after?
untrained knots come together additively
uncorrelated with strength, a mirage
of mutually self-canceling reinforcements.
retirement
when we are well rested
we object to old animals
self-lugging
through palpable fatigue.
we say this life had sufficient meaning.
it was well enough lived.
retirement is earned,
whether or not the effort
or the outcomes
were remarkable
or novice forgeries.
some trees are planted
over glorious dead—
swaddled into lineage,
instantly significant.
some trees stand amongst us
well past fruitfulness,
trusted to fall apart
without crushing others—
spared the unbewilderable drive
to cut things down.
even perennials fold over
splinter and rot
after years spent plugged in
but not charging.
[Nathaniel Calhoun lives in the Far North of Aotearoa. He works with teams that monitor and restore biodiversity in ecosystems around the world. He has published or upcoming work in New York Quarterly, Guest House, takahē, Azure, DMQ Review, Misfit, Quadrant, Hawaii Pacific Review & Landfall. He tweets, rarely, @calhounpoems .]
Copyright © 2022 by Nathaniel Calhoun, all rights reserved. This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of copyright law. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the notification of the journal and consent of the author.
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