for the students
The great dead circled the serrated
hills; they tried to remind you
to breathe. An old rat crawled
under fire-forgotten rocks; it was called
& pulled to a movable nothing
far from the human need to
heed & heal. Maybe you can’t
find it now, but the season
hauls the wind inside & because
you’re a student, you can put
some questions in your phone, especially
when you feel you shouldn’t cry …
Stipple the worry, the grief-torn, those
patterns of should & won’t ::; new
minutes set in past danger— spikelet
or callus on the roadside; you
stop in awe & are home.
Your human burden varies; the once
boundless freedom you sought even in
private still pulses on your skin ...
The little thistles between the human
& non-human animals, the linked auras
in trees & a colorful radiance
of bodies are hunched to begin—
Copyright © Brenda Hillman. This poem originally appeared in Clade Song. Used with permission of the author.