Even Rivers
It isn’t wanting to die it’s not even not wanting
to keep living, it’s some other kind of absenteeism
my spirit dreams about but they get all tangled up
in those labyrinthine trails through my neocortex
and give me a headache. What I want is no more
burden, less exhaustion, some kind of cosmic
attention that doesn’t require reciprocation
or sacrifice, so I can rest. Death is coming, fine.
Happens to everyone, even rivers. I don’t need
to rush things. I like the self that’s here now,
I will miss her when she’s gone, when I’m long
past the understanding of missing. Memory.
What we harbor now so closely and will vanish.
What we coax and reconsider like amber
worry beads and with every finger-touch it changes.
Meanwhile, I say to myself, go be happy, sing
your songs, even the dirges.
Molly Fisk edited California Fire & Water, A Climate Crisis Anthology, with a Poets Laureate Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets when she was Poet Laureate of Nevada County, CA. She’s won grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the California Arts Council, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Her most recent poetry collection is The More Difficult Beauty; her latest book of radio commentary is Everything But the Kitchen Skunk. Fisk lives in the Sierra foothills. For additional info, visit mollyfisk.com.
