The Wilderness around Us
There is no specific material object that is wilderness. The term designates a quality (as the ‘-ness’ suggests) that produces a certain mood or feeling in a given individual and, as a consequence, may be assigned by that person to a specific place.
—Roderick Frazier Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind
In the voice of my ancestor, whose name is unknown.
________ Fuller, to Matthew Fuller in Leyden, Holland: Early November, 1620
I have become a shivering rib,
but together all of us saints
form a ship. We carry
instructions of order
instructions of order
to the New World. As we push
our way south, the sea fights us,
our way south, the sea fights us,
sends currents of tentacled strangers
against us. I fear that I might perish
against us. I fear that I might perish
before we arrive—that you will grow
to a man, but my sunken eyes
to a man, but my sunken eyes
will never see your future. I long to meet
your children, and their children, to hear
your children, and their children, to hear
footsteps and laughter spilling
over warm floorboards.
over warm floorboards.
To mend their holes, tend their gardens,
keep warm stew for them always
keep warm stew for them always
on the hearth. I’ve heard the forests
are vast and impenetrable, with wolves
are vast and impenetrable, with wolves
and other shadows. If the land
becomes a snake, your father will wrap
becomes a snake, your father will wrap
her up in knots, tie her tongue. He will speak
to the birds in the fields
to the birds in the fields
and the birds will listen. Amen. He will banish
the thorns and thickets, make safe
the thorns and thickets, make safe
the soil that you will walk upon. Do not fear,
for the acres will be settled before you arrive,
for the acres will be settled before you arrive,
if I have to get out and swim
to ready a pillow for your head.
to ready a pillow for your head.
Or if I could, become an island, a pile
of rock smoothed by the hands
of rock smoothed by the hands
of God, with a garden blooming
between the mounds of my breasts.
between the mounds of my breasts.
Not like the other garden. No snakes
or hairy beasts will mar my shores.
or hairy beasts will mar my shores.
I want to know more than just a body
rocking ceaselessly. Land shrinks
rocking ceaselessly. Land shrinks
to a memory of stillness, a grain of sand
swallowed by the ocean, but I know
swallowed by the ocean, but I know
even beneath the sea, land lies sleepily,
dark and patient, though we cannot see it.
dark and patient, though we cannot see it.
