by Richard Brobst
Driving the other night, somewhere,
Nowhere, I felt the need to form a word—
Form it with my tongue pressed
Against the roof of my mouth, let it
Enter the world on the wings of my breath.
Any word would do. Any word
That would remind me that I
Am a product of speech and reason.
Then, a deeper desire—to pull
Off the road, enter a pasture on hands
And knees, among the moon-dazed cattle,
And there pronounce a word (perhaps
A noun) something to assert my intellect,
My dominion over them.
They are rare, these moments
When you understand that the earth
Will open for you
And you will be allowed
To leave only so many words,
And you have spent so much time
On the wrong ones.
[Check out Richard’s back porch wisdom here]
