Try to Praise the Mutilated World
by Adam Zagajewski
Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June’s long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of rosé wine.
The nettles that methodically overgrow
the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world.
You watched the stylish yachts and ships;
one of them had a long trip ahead of it,
while salty oblivion awaited others.
You’ve seen the refugees going nowhere,
you’ve heard the executioners sing joyfully.
You should praise the mutilated world.
Remember the moments when we were together
in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
You gathered acorns in the park in autumn
and leaves eddied over the earth’s scars.
Praise the mutilated world
and the gray feather a thrush lost,
and the gentle light that strays and vanishes
and returns.
What gets to me is the evocative nature of what’s abandoned, damaged, dying, ruined, scarred, mutilated. People and animals, of course, and trees, landscapes, natural communities, habitats, places, homes. Places overgrown, or, on the other hand, empty, devoid, or both. Times when places seem abandoned, shadows among barrenness, unmitigated dispassionate glare of light flattening all contour. The exiles of any sort, the earth’s scars, the wounds. Decay.
*
sheep statue, Lourdes shrine, Franciscan Monastery, Kennebunk, ME, Dec 2014north beach, Jekyll Island, Sept 2014Yemassee, SC, Sept. 2008furniture dumped along trail, Otter Creek Trail, Middlebury, Nov. 2013machine and hay shed, Jackson Trail, Weybridge VT, Nov. 2013debris on bridge after Hurricane Irene, White River Junction, VT, Sept 2011grill’s final resting spot, Quechee Dam, VT, Sept. 2010white plastic chair in woods, Manchester, VT, Oct 2010Lenox, MA, May 2010Lenox, MA, May 2010marble works roof and sky, Middlebury, VT, Nov. 2010end of world? ferry landing, Lake Champlain (VT to NY), Nov. 2010Naumkeag Asian Garden, Stockbridge, MA, May 2010balcony, brick, bramble, Savannah, GA, Dec 2013RR track switch, Andover, NH, Sept. 2015bridge on Northern Rail Trail (with spider), Sept 2015elementary school playground, Virginia, 1970selectrical box at old amphitheatre, Jekyll Island, Sept. 2005old battlements, Cape Henlopen, near Rehoboth, DE, Aug 2013Old Fort Jackson, Savannah, GA, Dec. 2010remains of old windmill, Knights Hill Nature Park, NH, May 2014old stove in woods, Quechee, VT, Oct 2015The Fells, Newbury, NH, June 2015Beaufort SC Welcome Center (old armory), June 2014railroad tracks, platform, Northern Rail Trail, NH, April 2015Longwood Gardens. PA, June 2013brick walkway with weeds, NH, Aug 2015Maine house, almost empty, Oct 2009empty Main Street, Middlebury VT, Thanksgiving morning, Nov. 2013Wapiti, WY, Aug 1992overgrown amphitheatre, Jekyll Island, Sept. 2014
*
“Someone walking down the street with absolutely no scars or calluses would look pretty odd. I suspect having a conversation with someone who’d never taken any emotional or mental damage would be even odder. The line between ‘experience’ and ‘damage’ is pretty thin.” — Aliza, from the Open-Source Wish Project via LessWrong
*
rotting apples, Carter Hill Orchard, Concord, NH, Nov 2012rotting log with stain of blue-green cup-fungus (Chlorociboria), Knights Hill Nature Park, NH, May 2014cracked ice and grasses, St. Anthony Franciscan Monastery, Kennebunk, ME, Dec 2014pieces of hornet’s nest, Webb Forest Trail, NH, Oct 2012split tree, Hildene, Manchester, VT, Oct 2010cut tree, Kennedy Park, Lenox, MA, May 2010tree, VINS, Quechee VT, Oct 2015remains of autumn crocus, Bedrock Gardens, Lee, NH, Oct 2015Mt. Washburn, Yellowstone National Park, WY, Aug 1992broken branch, Sewalls Falls Trail, Concord, NH, March 2015discarded Christmas trees, Jan 2013discarded pumpkins, West End Farm Trail, Concord, NH, Nov. 2014cutting of trees on West End Farm Trail, Concord, NH, Oct. 2015fallen tree, Fells trail, Newbury, NH, June 2015Norway maple damaged by ice, Jan. 2012hosta leaf with insect damage, Oct 2015frost-killed hydrangea, NH, Nov. 2013
*
“The line between ‘experience’ and ‘damage’ is pretty thin.”
Is there any line at all?
*
Thanks for checking in. Be sure to see what the other 31 Dayers are writing about.
*
This project is a bit like Wallace Stevens’ poemThirteen Ways of Looking At A Blackbird, in that I’m writing about a sense of place from vantage points that may not obviously connect with each other. I’m not going to attempt to tie them together. In the end, these 31 days of looking at a sense of place may overlap, contradict, form a whole, or collapse like a flan in a cupboard, as Eddie Izzard would say. That remains to be seen. Thanks for stopping by.
Welcome to Day 23 of 31 Days of A Sense of Place.
This project is a bit like Wallace Stevens’ poem Thirteen Ways of Looking At A Blackbird, in that I’m writing about a sense of place from vantage points that may not obviously connect with each other. I’m not going to attempt to tie them together. In the end, these 31 days of looking at a sense of place may overlap, contradict, form a whole, or collapse like a flan in a cupboard, as Eddie Izzard would say. That remains to be seen. Thanks for stopping by.
One comment