All day I have scowled and looked askance,
thrashing in a tide of hormones. I want
to make the world act the right way
and it has resisted. It will not see the obvious.
I want to tear out its eyes and place them
where they cannot help but see.
Until I go outside.
The warm, late-summer afternoon has spun down
to a balmy evening. A brassy sunset casts light
from somewhere in the sea. This light flows
around the trunks of sycamores arrayed in a row
and through their fluttering branches;
the air is tender on my bare arms and legs
and the world feels for this moment bathed in grace.
At last, I realize, the world is behaving.
At last, says the world, she is behaving.
"Behaving" by Tamara Madison. © Tamara Madison. Text presented here by poet submission.Art credit: "Tahquitz Sycamores," watermedia on Yupo, painting by Randall David Tipton.
Yes. It's an almost instantaneous cure for those moods, to "go out and walk upon the road, and quit […] the brick-built den" (James Stephens).
ReplyDeleteBeautiful poem, Ms. Madison!
This is smooth, Tamara, you animate a good perspective, the counterpoint....
ReplyDeleteBeautiful poem, important reminder!
ReplyDelete