In Chota Nagpur and Bengal the betrothed are tied with threads to mango trees, they marry the trees as well as one another, and the two trees marry each other. Could we do that some time with oaks or beeches? This gossamer we hold each other with, this web of love and habit is not enough. In mistrust of heavier ties, I would like tree-siblings for us, standing together somewhere, two trees married with us, lightly, their fingers barely touching in sleep, our threads invisible but holding.
Poor patient pig -- trying to keep his balance, that's all, upright on a flatbed ahead of me, somewhere between Pennsylvania and Ohio, enjoying the wind, maybe, agains the tufts of hair on the tops of his ears, like a Stoic at the foot of the gallows, or, with my eyes heavy and glazed from caffeine and driving, like a soul disembarking, its flesh probably bacon now tipping into split
pea soup, or, more painful to me, like a man in his middle years struggling to remain vital and honest while we're all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze. What funny thoughts slide into the head, alone on the interstate with no place to be.
From Touch: Poems by Henri Cole Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011
