This is what happened: I found
the wren frozen stuck to the ground
and I kept on moving. The onion
snow came too late this year;
the hard freeze took out the plums.
Some farmer kept the coal-
barrels burning through the night.
Another lit half his land
on fire to save the grapes. Some
theologians think [ ] gave us grapes –
but not wine – so we, too, could find
joy in creation. See: we make bread
to be torn apart, hot. Hot, and full
of yanked-up wheatsheaf. We
love the dog even though we know,
we know — be it love or oats,
we know it when we plant it —
most things don’t make it out alive.
This is just to say: I’m not a
theologian, or a farmer, or even
the woman who scooped up the wren’s
body, tucked it in a plastic bag,
and kept it in her freezer between
the berries and winter greens,
waiting patiently for the final thaw
to bury it in soft earth. I’m just
a girl with an emergent deer in her
cupped palms; a girl saying: look! This is
what I have created with my grief.
This is what love has made out of me.
Header photograph © Shalini Chaudhary.
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