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Places, In and Out

Jared Pearce

              Resurrection, Destin, Florida

One must travel
to the shore for reassurance:
this autumn wind dying
down shall be again, lifted
into glory as it hums
over the dunes, the snack shops
shut up for loneliness;
And all the gears
and pulleys will be replaced, fed
on the same cosmic belt
looping the entire machine,
a motion and idle and rattle in all
existence: these parts shall again
find a patch and synchronicity;
For where else
shall the tears and refused meals be kept,
nights where a child keeps one awake
crying, the anguish in that whirlwind
of loss of speech and being
past feeling?         It will all rise again,
from the sea if necessary, and can be
visited at any one point.

 

           Museums

The recording wasn’t perfect, the voice nearly
drowned out with a hissing like piped in
water.  He was the main archeologist from Masada,
recorded for our edification, and his words slipped
along like a mountain creek: here would be the tablets
he felt were the lots drawn that decided who killed
and made sure everyone fell before the Romans’
dam burst and carried off the zealots like a red sea.
A stream of viewers, we drifted among jars and tunics,
a replica of Rome’s armor and siege machinery,
until he announced that next would be the sign

that possibly the head fanatic was the final man
bleeding the infants, spoiling the wells. And there
they sat, finally, sunk inside a glassy locker: marks
scratched onto bone or rock, and the guide babbling on

about responsibility. And next to the chits was an eddy
of braided hair, bits of skin still clinging to the roots:
my sister could have combed that; my wife has such
talents.  The world is drenched in time.

Jared Pearce

 

           Deserts & Swamps

The fact of the matter is, the winter and spring 1992
were very wet for Southern California, and the desert tore

open its rocks and sands revealing blossoms, insects
filled the skies, jackrabbits tore up the mountains.
There’s something
to be said for burgeoning, for bringing life ex nihilo.

And in the middle of
2000 the Atchafalaya basin was no eye-candy: cypresses
all grey, only a trickley string of ponds.

But a month after June 2001 the bog lolled in
its own slow ripples, its face of glass almost
a sky.

If a woman has a skin so clean
she’ll gush it out to hide her years.

Someone’s mother said
the desert had its own beauty. I crossed it

many times, never wanting to stay
longer than necessary; its loneliness

distorting every perception.
Someone else’s father wondered why
the river was clear everywhere
except Louisiana?

At certain points, the earth refuses
age, yet we want so much to be a part

of it, to have some company, some
consolation,           a spring of truth.

Jared Pearce

 

              Resurrection, Destin, Florida

One must travel
to the shore for reassurance:
this autumn wind dying
down shall be again, lifted
into glory as it hums
over the dunes, the snack shops
shut up for loneliness;
And all the gears
and pulleys will be replaced, fed
on the same cosmic belt
looping the entire machine,
a motion and idle and rattle in all
existence: these parts shall again
find a patch and synchronicity;
For where else
shall the tears and refused meals be kept,
nights where a child keeps one awake
crying, the anguish in that whirlwind
of loss of speech and being
past feeling?         It will all rise again,
from the sea if necessary, and can be
visited at any one point.

 

 

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About Jared Pearce

Jared Pearce teaches writing and literature at William Penn University. Some of his poems are forthcoming from Asymptote, Amarillo Bay, CircleShow, and The Cape Rock, while others have recently been shared in Bird's Thumb, Belle Reve, Angle, and Paper Nautilus.

Filed Under: Poetry

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