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Blessing

3/18/2016

2 Comments

 
May the barbecue bless America.
May the cornfields, scarecrows smiling.
May every alleyway witness

to the night’s murderous
tendencies. May the street-lamps bless
America. May the flagpoles in Harlem

and Atlanta, redwood trees north
of San Francisco, waterfalls
in upper Alabama. May the state roads

of Kentucky curve from Tennessee,
from Memphis and the Blues
that make you think these hearts

are watermelon. May the watermelon bless.
May the tomato and onion, rice, hard
orange root named carrot—may the thirst

of cactus bless America. May our canyons
tell us how much can be filled
but how much has been carved away.

May the desert’s reptilian eyes
remind us of the word cold-blooded, as if
we have been ice or glaciers melting

into Great Lakes remembered
by thinking of home. May the eyes
cut into every totem pole

teach us about our brothers and sisters
as if our own eyes of green and black
are carved from a great universal body.

May the flowers leaning on headstones
in our cemeteries bless, even if
they cannot bring us back.

May the birdbath bless.
May a field in Northwest Indiana
of green and yellow grasses.

Each flag flown without wind,
may the red and white be muscles
and bones working together

with starlit sky. May the dogs bark
their wolf dialect. May we look again
after we have uncovered the spider

beneath the stone, after speaking
in the moon’s ear to find no one listens.
May the caterpillar not die cocooned.

May the cocoon be a window, world
like womb where a heart is always
nearby, in your ears and on your lips.

May our mouths refill with words.
May our teeth fossilize, our jaws
now evidence, and slide from detective

to detected. May the antelope
and moose, may the buffalo bless.
May every barn, straw floors

and wooden beams, contain one ghost.
May we wake with the smell of jasmine
in our nostrils. May the gardenias bloom

and may a child put her nose to the center
and may this not hurt. May she close her eyes
and dream: of a life she will not rewrite

one day, every word remembered like birthday,
every kiss begun slow, meaning
I have waited to find you

because I have waited to find me.
Every time the candle wax kneels
before the air: may a cave

know body spelunking.
When a mirror sparks: may bird
crack its eggshell skin.

May grizzly bears remember their uncles.
May the woman behind the counter
named Mary be a mother to someone

even if her body can’t give birth.
May the man with an axe think
of his mother as a shockwave

shakes through tree. May the men
reading books on law and revolution,
end beginning in the middle of history,

may they remember the founding fathers.
Powdered wigs. Claims of equality.
Those cabins and estates

that never lacked a leader.
May I say now, where the light
is a mixture of dungeon and ocean:

our ears are not ready to hear
the song we’ve tried to write.
Listen to the trees. Listen

to your grandfather, even if
he was wrong, even if he’d been wronged
by people he was wrong about.

We are not so different, you and I,
glazed over with midnights spread out
against a sky where the question

has not yet been answered.
I do not know what happens
when it’s over. Once

I stepped on an ant, and I believed
when you’re done, you’re done.
But I do not know who will breathe

this breath tomorrow. I do not know
if the tiger will dance, if the crane
will pluck its own feather and write

with the ink of an octopus
the story of its flight. How it rose
through wind. How it felt like angel

and came down, shucking the dust
off its wings as if even the remnants
of others gathering upon you

will not stay. Even when you are dead
and gone, collecting in the lion’s mane.
Even then it will patrol the savannah.

Will float and settle like driftwood.
Will be brought to wherever
these galactic spinning arms say

            Stop. Rest here.

2 Comments
Laurie Gustke
3/18/2016 02:24:36 pm

Oh. My. Goodness. This made me feel so much ~ such beautiful imagery!! You captured the interconnectedness of all of us everywhere beautifully ~ can't wait to read more from you!

Reply
Mary Lanzillo
3/21/2016 04:15:58 am

Simply beautiful.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Maggie Graber

    Margaret Graber is a writer and poet originally from Northwest Indiana. She holds an MFA from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale and has been awarded fellowships and residencies from the Luminarts Cultural Foundation and the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation. Her work has been featured or is forthcoming in Duende, Atticus Review, Stirring: A Literary Collection, Toad, and others. A former radio D.J. and environmental educator, she most recently lived and worked at a farm on the Eel River in Northern California..

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  • Fall
    • Tayler Karinen
    • Benjamin Lindsey
    • Patrick Harrington
    • Rich Ives
    • Kelly Kotewa
    • Craig Rodgers
    • Laura Fletcher
    • Jen McConnell
    • Remi Skytterstad
  • Past Issues
    • YEAR ONE >
      • Issue 1: October >
        • Dalton Day
        • Camila Maldonado
        • Elizabeth Burton
        • Daniel Kay
        • Shelby Bevins-Sullivan
        • Ryan Havers
      • Issue 2: November >
        • Rob Sturma
        • Candi V. Auchterlonie
        • Christopher Mulrooney
        • William James
        • Andrew Rhys Young
        • Michael Cormack
        • Kayla Pongrac
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        • Ann Huang
        • Peter Vanderberg
        • John Sweet
        • Daniel von der Embse
        • Rebecca Dutsar
        • Sarah Kersey
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        • Carly Gordon
        • Yoni Hammer-Kossoy
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        • Davon Loeb
        • Paul Beckman
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        • William Butler
        • Robert A. Kaufman
    • YEAR TWO >
      • Issue 13: October >
        • R. G. Evans
        • John Pistelli
        • Hannah Brown
        • Carl Boon
        • Christine Nichols
        • Joshua Robert Long
      • Issue 14: November >
        • Rushda Rafeek
        • John Grabski
        • Naima Woods
        • Peter Burzynski
        • Kathleen Radigan
      • Issue 15: December >
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        • Darren C. Demaree
        • Prerna Bakshi
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        • Abigail Marshall
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        • Abigail George
        • Nazifa Islam
        • Matthew Moffett
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        • Olivia Grayson
        • Kristin Roedell
        • Roisin Kelly
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        • Stelth Ulvang
        • Henry Goldkamp
      • Issue 23: August >
        • Ron Gibson
        • Colleen Rich
        • Jefferson Navicky
        • Mehrnoosh Torbatnejad
        • Simon Perchik
      • Issue 24: September >
        • Sally J. Johnson
        • Lewis Mundt
        • April Vázquez
        • Emma Hutson
    • YEAR THREE >
      • Issue 25: October >
        • Peter Weltner
        • Nicholas Morris
        • Ola Faleti
        • Phoebe Nicholson
      • Issue 26: November >
        • Effy Fritz
        • Maxwell Radwin
        • David Atkinson
        • Eddy Jordan
      • Issue 27: December >
        • Jon Bennett
        • Stephanie Valente
        • Leigh Cheak
      • Issue 28: January >
        • Adrienne Novy
        • John Grabski
        • Fay Sachpatzidis
        • Paulie Lipman
        • Sarah David
      • Issue 29: February >
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        • Amanda Kabak
        • Travis Naught
        • Allen Forrest
        • Susan Monaghan
      • Issue 30: March >
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        • Claire Hopple
        • Maura Lee Bee
      • Issue 35: August >
        • Luisana Cortez
        • Aza Pace
        • Carrie Chappell
        • Adam Lock
      • Issue 36: September >
        • Jill Mceldowney
        • Leon Kortenkamp
        • Sarah Jones
        • Darren Demaree
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      • Issue 37: October >
        • Hannah Stone
        • William Doreski
        • Sarah Wetzel
        • C. T. Salazar
      • Issue 38: November >
        • Kristen Ploetz
        • Stephanie Rael
        • Brittany Frederick
        • Jay Sheets
        • Andy Cashmore
      • Issue 39: December >
        • Taylor Mali
        • Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz
        • John Williams
        • Iskandar Haggarty
        • Donald Hubbard
        • Kenneth Otani
        • Alex Miller
      • SPRING >
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        • Colleen Rich
        • Donia Mounsef
        • Nitzan Meltzer Watman
        • Ann Hillesland
        • DJ Swykert
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        • Daniel Nester
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        • Ally Ang
        • Kurt Luchs
        • Joanna Hoffman
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        • Emma Wang
        • Maria McLeod
        • Darren Demaree
        • Susan J. Mitchell
      • SPRING >
        • Sandra Kolankiewicz
        • Michael O'Neill
        • Lino Anunciacion
        • Katherine Fallon
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