PLAN FOR MY ONE WILD AND PRECIOUS LIFE

by Laura Kaminski

poem honoring, and with lines from, Mary Oliver, 17-January-2019

The complexities were beyond me, I couldn’t

seem to get beyond the split infinitive

and comma splice, the English grammar that

matters so much when spit-polishing a poem.

I couldn’t see the point in layering allusion,

metaphor, and simile so thickly over the top

of a small seed of meaning that it didn’t

stand a chance of sprouting and finding its way

up to the surface through the dirt. Wanted

to write, but had the misimpression: poems had

to always be in fancy-dress, lines always had

to be exactly five feet long. Then your

poems found me, offered invitation: just say

what you mean, best you can, informally, your

readers are your friends, you’re together in

the garden, working, weeding, mulching.

So this is what I plan to do with my one wild

and precious life. Say it simple. Low-growing.

Humble. Don’t so much look for accolades as give

them, honor human becoming and green-tongue leaf

and purple petal. Oh, violets, you did signify,

and what shall take / Your place?

Source: From the Rebel Issue (October 2019)