The post title is an ominous line from those of us aware that we are in a relationship with the natural world. (Sez me.) The line comes from a poem by Liz Waldener, soon to be seen in The New Yorker.
By the evidence of Semblance: Screens, her appearance is well deserved.
Here's the poem, via the great Poetry Daily.
A moth lies open and lies
like an old bleached beech leaf,
a lean-to between window frame and sill.
Its death protects a collection of tinier deaths
and other dirts beneath.
Although the white paint is water-stained,
on it death is dirt, and hapless.
The just-severed tiger lily
is drinking its glass of water, I hope.
This hope is sere.
This hope is severe.
What you ruin ruins you, too
and so you hope for favor.
I mean I do.
The underside of a ladybug
wanders the window. I wander
the continent, my undercarriage not as evident,
so go more perilously, it seems to me.
But I am only me; to you it seems clear
I mean to disappear, and am mean
and project on you some ancient fear.
If I were a bug, I hope I wouldn't be
this giant winged thing, spindly like a crane fly,
skinny-legged like me, kissing the cold ceiling,
fumbling for the face of the other, seeking.
It came in with me last night when I turned on the light.
I lay awake, afraid it would touch my face.
It wants out. I want out, too.
I thought you a way through.
Arms wide for wings,
your suffering mine, twinned.
Screen. Your unbelief drives me in,
doubt for dirt, white sheet for sill—
You don't stay other enough or still
enough to be likened to.
To tell the truth, first I thought this was the poem as warning. Exploring the power of the language with an ominous forecast of things to come. But now I think it's more than that. It's a desire for union with "the face of the other," that is, with the natural world, perhaps before it's gone…but at the same time, a fear of kissing spiders.
Fascinating work. Piranesi would understand…
Kit Stolz 