So still and quiet in the depth of the wood, so intent

upon the shred of white birch bark that I am trying to

write upon, to fashion into something like living paper,

that the green depths around me, unwatched, become

alive, the bushes trembling with the lives of the squirrels

and occasional birds, the throat of the frog once again

opening into song in the water, the step of the deer

moving toward the sweet grass, so in my not being

here–my attention, that restless thief, that peddler,

paused as if suspended above the blades of the grass,

the blue succulent leaves of the skunk cabbage,

their lovely globular heads– I hear the pulse of the earth,

its many breaths, how it goes on without me. . .

the drift and rustle of words moving in the depths

 

behind my eyes, the advent of true feeling. As if attention

were meant to be nailed to a shoe or a pencil in order

for the deep presences and the deep absences of the self

to begin breathing. Once for days, I became an absence

among a nest of wild kittens, a large saucer of milk

on the floor; each day moving the bowl a little closer,

I waited and waited,  almost unbreathing, until

my hand flew out of its own accord (at random,

it wasn’t toward the one I’d  thought I wanted). Seized,

black and starving, the kitten shrieked  and turned

to stitch me with its needle teeth.  I carried it home

in both hands, clinging to its feral body as it clung

to me, its eye tooth anchored in my index finger, so present

and piercing, that I felt my self in the dark red drops

 

as a welling up and falling away.

 

  

 

© Rebecca Seiferle