because you’ll need to stop and listen eventually

07May08

Drive south on Highway 9
until you hit the only rest stop
with your name carved into the oak tree
just outside the women’s room,
then close your eyes and listen
with the hearing of that dog
you never wanted,
kept chained to a fence
until someone came along and stole it.
It was me, by the way.
The dog has a new owner now,
someone a lot like you
but without a life like a salvage yard.

A lot of things can go without water
for a long time and still survive.
You know how summer gets here,
ground cracked like hands in winter,
light through the windshield
that makes you think of the last days,
how the earth will be taken whole
into the sun, the way you were taken
whole into me, the way the tree
took the tip of the blade as I carved,
without a wince, without letting go
a single bead of sap.

* * *

I need to fix part of this. I’ll work on it later. Bear with me, people, I am just trying to write some stuff.


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9 Responses to “because you’ll need to stop and listen eventually”  

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  1. 1 summer picnic on May 7, 2008 said:

    Love it, especially the beginning that hooked me and the end brining it back to the tree: “the way the tree took your name as I carved it, without a wince, without letting go a single bead of sap.”

  2. 2 Clare on May 7, 2008 said:

    Breathtaking….even as an early draft.

  3. 3 Dana on May 7, 2008 said:

    Hi Summer, thanks for your comment. I appreciate the feedback.

  4. 4 Dana on May 7, 2008 said:

    Clare, thank you. I feel like it’s a mess, but I think there’s something in it. If not, at least it’s writing practice, right?

  5. 5 mariacristina on May 7, 2008 said:

    I agree with Clare. It’s writing from the gut. The part about the narrator taking the dog, then leading into the parched land is very powerful.

  6. 6 Rethabile on May 8, 2008 said:

    Write, write, write. We like, like, like.

  7. 7 Dana on May 8, 2008 said:

    Thanks Christine, I think I want to work in more stuff you would see on the side of the highway in Oklahoma. I don’t know how that would work with the dog, who’s clearly not on the side of the road. I feel like I need to read something by Sharon Olds to get me into the tone of this poem.

  8. 8 Dana on May 8, 2008 said:

    Rethabile, I am trying. We’ll see if I can keep it up.

  9. 9 Clare on May 9, 2008 said:

    I think you are brilliant. Just sayin’

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