A Charm Against the Language of Politics
Say over and over the names of things,
the clean nouns: weeping birch, bloodstone, tanager,
Banshee damask rose. Read field guides, atlases,
gravestones. At the store, bless each apple
by kind: McIntosh, Winesap, Delicious, Jonathan.
Enunciate the vegetables and herbs: okra, calendula.
Go deeper into the terms of some small landscape:
spiders, for example. Then, after a speech on
compromising the environment for technology,
recite the tough, silky structure of webs:
tropical stick, ladder web, mesh web, filmy dome, funnel,
trap door. When you have compared the candidates’ slippery
platforms, chant the spiders: comb footed, round headed,
garden cross, feather legged, ogre faced, black widow.
Remember that most short verbs are ethical: hatch, grow,
spin, trap, eat. Dig deep, pronounce clearly, pull the words
in over your head. Hole up
for the duration.
I came across this poem back in February, via a Shelf Awareness colleague who pointed me to the On Being blog. It reminds me, in some ways, of Wendell Berry, and I love its clarion call to remember what is real. (Especially during a political cycle where reality is constantly being twisted and distorted.)
April is National Poetry Month, and I’ll be sharing poetry here on Fridays this month, as I do every year.
cakes, tea and dreams 
“Short verbs are ethical” (the moment I fell in love with a poet) – thanks for introducing me to this wonderful poet and poem. I just read her poem “Threshold” – reminds me of the night my mother died. Thank you for your beautiful posts.
Thank you for sharing this now.