If You Go to America and Look Around, You Should Wonder Why They Tried To Destroy the Greatest Trees First

 

“Here where the thorns grow,
spreading over mounds of dust and ruins.
These eyes of mine once saw
the gardens blooming in the spring.”
—Mir, trans. Ralph Russell

Where people cut trees
and raze memory, ages,
to barren drought and dust,
former meadows harden
under a scorching shine,

and thorns begin to rise
as if earth itself were turned
to bear blood-drawing horns.
And the point?—To teach
the stubborn the taste of bitter

remedy called humbleness,
and the humble, in turn,
how to breed stubbornness.
In a word: where souls and life
are cut short, the land itself

starts laying a feast
for greatly wanted asses—
to match the stubborn
bareness of hearts and souls,
whether adrift or wedged fast

between reefs and shoals,
passing to each other
the tokens of Judas—
kind kisses of chilling betrayal—
while stalked by arid shades.