Poem of the Week, by Gregory Djanikian
My new poems podcast, Words by Winter, can be found here.
A few days ago we hiked a remote trail north of Yellowstone, a passage between two high ridges that had burned maybe twenty years ago. Carry bear spray and know how to use it. Avoid places where ravens have gathered. Dress your kill and remove the meat immediately. Because I’m scared (understatement) of bears, I constantly scanned the ridges and the rushing creek between them.
Half an hour in, the sound of high-pitched screaming rose from behind the ridge line. We stopped and stared at each other. Bears? The wailing was carried on the wind, and we realized it was the wind itself, rising above and between the ridges and slopes littered with charred trunks. An unearthly companion, marking the twists and turns of the trail, the waterfalls, the huge burnt trunks and the little new pines growing in their wake. A reminder –a relief?–of how small my humanness is, how inconsequential in the great scheme of the wilderness.
So Much of the World, by Gregory Djanikian
So much of the world exists
without us
the mountain in its own steepness
the deer sliding
into the trees becoming
a darkness
in the woods’ darkness.
So much of an open field
lies somewhere between the grass
and the dragonfly’s drive and thrum
the seed and seedling,
the earth within.
But so much of it lies in someone
standing alone at the edge of a field
with a life apart
feeling for a moment
the plover’s cry
on the tongue
the curve and plumb
of the apple bough
in limb and bone.
So much of it between
one thing and another,
days of invitation,
then of release and return.
For more information on Gregory Djanikian, please check out his website.
alisonmcghee.com
Words by Winter: my new podcast
Last week I woke up on a cold and windy day and did my own tiny triathlon: jog, kayak, bike. I did this only for myself, for the hell of it, no time pressure, no expectations, no one watching. The jog went well. The kayaking was hard (the wind was so strong it was all I could do to keep from going backward). By the time I got to the bike portion I decided to keep it simple and just ride around the same lake four times like a hamster on a wheel, which was ridiculous and made me laugh. But when I finished my tiny anonymous tri I felt so unexpectedly happy. So grateful for these muscles and bones and heart and lungs. How great and wonderful it is to be alive inside a body.
Sometimes I feel so sad for men. All the unspoken rules. All the ways our culture tries to train boys out of their openness, their gentleness, their human need for hugs and touch. I think of the multiple men I know who have told no one but me the ways they were sexually abused as children. I think of my giant of a father, and the look on his face when he told me how his mother used to scream at him when he was little. I think of all the men I know who depend on the women they love to translate the world of emotion for them, to navigate the nuances of relationships. I think of how sex sometimes seems the only acceptable way for a man to give and receive physical affection, the only time they can let down their guard. 
Most of the furniture in our house is wood, found curbside like the tiny wooden table that caught my eye yesterday a few blocks from home. Polished burled top, slender wooden dowels, sturdy legs, it looked handmade. My backpack was stuffed full of heavy groceries but I picked the table up anyway and carried it home like a baby. 
