Wednesday, March 07, 2012

Radiance

An ant, the size of this 'l', walks carefully
the perimeter of my laptop, straying at whiles
onto the warm snow of the writing app, blinded,

struggling on. I pause with my finger over him.
I've killed them before, without thinking,
despite my Buddhist convictions.

They make your fingertip smell like rust.
A Buddhist when convenient, you might say, or
culturally Christian, instinctively American:

bugs are to kill. Or you can spiral into
justifications: is
an individual ant a sentient being? Surely

the hive is the sentient being? By which argument
my own status as unexpendable
is hardly beyond doubt. I pause again, then

lift my laptop, and blow. A mighty wind,
and the field of warm, dazzling,
inexplicable light vanishes. Falling

and falling, what whisper of consciousness
draws the eddying curves of his descent?
What flickers of fear or desire

Haunt his fall? I am the Lord your God
who brought you out of Egypt
.
The sun falls warm on my skin,

And I glance up, blinking,
at the unexpected radiance of Spring.


In response to this Morning Porch post.

5 comments:

Dale said...

Not sure there's any reason for this to be formatted as verse :-) But I'll look at it again tomorrow.

Deb said...

Adore the line breaks 9as well as the ant and the idea), which I hope will weigh in your favor of "poem." Let me give you "justifications: is" as my evidence. :-0

Marly Youmans said...

Like the rust and the tiny, godly, epic wind that blows him out of the field of light... Then the twist where you are in your own field of light.

That's always the question these days, isn't it? Where is the line between poetry and prose? And we much each decide that one, and where we want to stand.

And it's an interesting question.

Kathleen said...

Enjoyed this and the discussion following it, and the discussion within it. More and more people I talk to these days do not kill the bug!

marly youmans said...

must each

not

much each

The ditz!

And this is the longest word verification I have ever seen. Proving you're not a robot is getting harder and harder.