Antipastoral: This Green and Pleasant Land
I have no wonder left for petrichor.
No heart to marvel at osmanthus,
sumac. My eye idles in the grass
of your sprawling country
-scapes, glazed with matte patina.
In your pristine pastoral, God
lords above a lea of moaning cattle.
If men walk here, none notice the irony
of His painting the cows
both black and white at once.
But I am meant to swoon
at the sight of water
-lilies, of quail pecking
at blackberries the same way
boar revel in the lush
throat of a kill.
Never mind the fireflies
that have all but gone.
Never mind who once blistered
on this green and pleasant land.
There’s nothing you can tell me about beauty.
About what glory languishes
untended, blooming mutinous
despite all morass and blur.
So if I must admire the magpies,
their morbid halo, you will
look first, unflinching,
at what festers in the brush:
the saltating maggots, the feasting
butterflies; their dripping
wings.
