the seductive picture of cities growing
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The course of exhaustion is evanescent but plotted
with such precision that any artist could paint it. The last
raindrops swell around the bud-point of every bough. There
is nothing certain about the appearance of bodies in physical
space. A slow cascade, nearly stilled. It isn’t a matter of if you
wish to appear, but of whether you will, and for long. What
scheduled pleasure doesn’t admit to some rain, in the
forecast at least. Such are the pleasures of thought to the
perfectly thoughtless. A flag snaps endlessly flat in the breeze.
There’s time to get out in the world and to breathe, to liven
the lungs, to raise the eyes, to visit the rambling park where
teenagers brawl. As for me, I’m merely eroding by choice.
Each decision guides me through the next, like choosing a
path through the city by following continuous holiday lights.
Sometimes they’re strung with disastrous economy. Whereas
I’d gladly follow a bird if I could only get one to lead me as
Robert Frost was led in his famous poem, “The Woodpile.”
Possibly birds don’t behave in that way any longer. They
seldom encounter ghosts, or so I believe. Perception will be
salvation, one tells oneself, imagining one has been
perceived. I take your disappearance as notice from the other
world. Someone lifts an iron and rain begins. The sun grows
repetitious like desire. The feeling is that of a marketplace.
An ethereal mildew coats every mote in its confines. It’s said
that the lowliest garbage is flush and sublime. And becoming
family, and arresting the breaking wave. A pattern we hold
beyond hope of modulation.
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Andy Stallings lives in Western Massachusetts with Melissa Dickey and their children. His first two books, To the Heart of the World (2014) and Paradise (2018), each came out with Rescue Press. He teaches and coaches at Deerfield Academy.