PROSE CONTACT

 

Go

When you are lonely
or this world seems

too rotten
even for the compost heap

go,

lie on the earth.
Kiss her.

Go to the water.
Listen.

These are bodies
who respond to your
loneliness,

the earth and waters
can be melancholy, too,
like the sound of birds
flying into extinction.

Do you hear
how they need you?

Go.

Do you feel
the wounded air
tremble
for your embrace?

First published, Wisconsin Poets' Calendar 2011

A letter from Antler
Dear Louisa,
Your opening poem, "Go" [in "Low Life and Blood Relatives"] reminds me how when I was lonely for a young friend, by going alone into Nature I found what I was looking for. The realization the Earth and Water are "bodies who respond to your loneliness." Also how the Earth and Water and Air are wounded by our pollution, causing the greatest extinction of species and habitat ever. How [they] need us now as much as we need them. I love the thought of embracing the Air, or the thought of the Air embracing us every second the way water does a fish. The thought of the Earth and Water and Air being lovers as much as human lovers reminds me of Whitmans's realization that eros goes beyond the Kinsey Continuum to include Nature, Universe, Death, Eternity. The mysterium tremendum beckons. . . .Thought of air trembling at one's embrace is such a tender and majestic thought, just thinking it helps. A wonderful healing poem.
Love, A.

 

All images, artwork and text © 2011 Louisa Loveridge Gallas

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