Poetry |

“Richter Scale,” “Reverberance” and “No News”

Richter Scale

If this were a crowd-sourced blueprint for the resistance,

it would tell you what action to take, but it won’t,

it can’t, isn’t, I’m afraid, built that way. It wants,

instead, to daydream, to remember a sunset

when a bevy of deer vogued in the meadow,

all looking up at the same time while grazing,

all five tilting their heads at the same angle,

their tails held up like rattles about to twitch.

I scroll news the way my father followed stocks,

sensitive to the smallest tremor.

A seismograph, a lie-detector needle, my pen,

its doodles on the scratch pad. In slow motion,

who can tell which way things will fall? History,

in real time. The deer scatter when I blink.

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

Reverberance

Rubbed with beeswax paste

to a high soothing shine —

these walls, sharply planed,

slightly curved. The surface

of the plaster, as if lit

from within and windswept,

like a gypsum dune.

Inside windswept is wept.

Reaching down, the weeping

willow’s branches swept

the gravel of our tears —

willows at the old house

and those particular tears

past their known impact.

Here, the apricot bears fruit.

Bear scat gums the long grass.

Where horses used to graze,

deer doze and when they flee

our dogs, knick their hooves

on the hollow iron gate

that rings like an idiophone

and reverberates through

the dogs’ barking, through

the house and the sounds

we make living in it, the clatter

and chatter, the electronics —

slaying noise, piercing silence,

a prayer cymbal’s clean strike.

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

No News

At least back then you could benignly neglect

politics and it wasn’t at your mortal peril,

or so we liked to pretend. Not like now

when we live to see the change change back,

ideals — decency — humanity — restored.                

General derision at the state of things,

anguish sometimes, fear, disgust,

and there’s plenty to do but what exactly —

nothing, except chip away: claw-chisel

at massive stone. You want to trust in

the truths you were taught growing up,

values the worth of which you understand.

No news is good news, none of it,

and it’s never no news, it’s only not knowing.

Contributor
Carol Moldaw

Carol Moldaw’s most recent poetry collection is Beauty Refracted (Four Way Books, 2018). The author of five other books of poetry, including The Lightning Field and So Late, So Soon: New and Selected Poems, as well as a novelThe Widening, she lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Posted in Poetry

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.