Postscript

Listen to Cate Marvin reading this poem.


We sure are tired, so long the longing
we undertook. It would put you to sleep
to read the book of examinations, trial,
and speculations. Even the cattle minded
the haul we had in mind for them, lugging
the same records across and back the same
lands, as if we were lost in the ocean.
The cry-me scarves were sold on the way,
blue silk soaked with tear salt; the fire
ants we played with for pain, arguing
whose hands had become the numbest, lost.
It is sorry, then, the haul come to nothing
in the net, only more weight of pages
and pages to trod with upon our backs.
Though the goal was not known, we knew
it would be discovered, would bloom out
like hills of poppies, crossing our eyes
with their red scent—though the idea, if not
the goal, was always in plain-eyed view.
To turn the ear like a weather antenna,
risk the tamper of satellite communications,
to yelp like puppies in an abandoned basket,
to scream like dirt to an eye that endeavors
to clean. If someday you should have the sense
to find us, camped still at the place we stopped
to rest, where resting took longer than any
of us could expect, do not be drawn
by our gypsy calls, our lonely tweaking
at guitar strings, do not pause for a listen:
we have nothing more to sing of you.

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