HURRICANE SANDY
The unevenness
Of meadows and hills,
The mountains’
Gorgeous dissonance,
Outcrops and swaths
Of bald limestone,
Coarse granite ledge,
Clusters of pine,
Nervous, a little stiff,
Clinging for dear life–
And the sun
In full, horrible,
Desperate magnificence
From necessity,
Gives us another
Of its serene, abrupt,
Unutterable glances.
Clouds pass. The world turns.
It’s an oval ladybug,
But blue, green,
And white, tender
As a housefly,
An earnest nuisance
Hypnotized by its own
Amphibious atmosphere,
Cosmic breathlessness,
The lash of the sky’s
Vast, unpredictable
Tongue, eyes that bulge
Like frog’s fellow,
Inhospitable planets,
Or other suns, stars,
The enormous fact
Of this accident’s
Blind complexity,
Stubborn and empty
As a zombie, black holes,
Tan ones called dwarfs–
Venus, like us, is green–
And on the back
Of this beetle, or turtle,
With its cracked,
Yet viscous, volcanic heart,
Its tapestry, crust
And crutch, swirl
And return the souls,
Bones and bodies
Of the beloved, a joke
Of metaphor, venereal
Soil, health and
All nourishment.
My granddaughter
Kisses me on the forehead
And says, Wake up,
Grandpa! The wind begins
Its churn and blow again,
As if the essence
Of negative capability
Were stupidity.
-Kenneth Rosen
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