stonepicnicking_okapi

The last of The Best of It by Kay Ryan.

Weakness and Doubt by Kay Ryan

Weakness and doubt
are symbionts
famous throughout
the fungal orders,
which admire pallors,
rusts, grey talcums,
the whole palette
of dusts and powders
of the rot kingdom
and do not share
our kind’s disgust
at dissolution,
following the
interplay of doubt
and weakness
as a robust sort of business;
the way we
love construction,
they love hollowing.

[Note: I thought the one above might make good fodder if I decide to do a fungal horror story for Hallowe'en]

Failure 2 by Kay Ryan

There could be nutrients
in failure—
deep amendments
to the shallow soil
of wishes.
Think of the
dark and bitter
flavors of
black ales
and peasant loaves.
Think of licorices.
Think about
the tales of how
Indians put fishes
under corn plants.
Next time hope
relinquishes a form,
think about that.

[The one above is one I plan to copy/print and keep]

( Sharks' Teeth, The Best of It, Blue China Doorknob, Lighthouse Keeping )

I am still going through The Best of It by Kay Ryan.

Mirage Oases by Kay Ryan

First among places
susceptible to trespass
are mirage oases

whose graduated pools
and shaded grasses, palms
and speckled fishes give
before the lightest pressure
and are wrecked.

For they live
only in kingdom
of suspended wishes,

thrive only at our pleasure
checked.

Chemistry by Kay Ryan

Words especially
are subject to
the chemistry
of death: it is
an acid bath
which dissolves
or doubles
their strength.
Sentiments
which pleased
drift down
as sediment;
iron trees
grow from filament.

Bestiary by Kay Ryan

A bestiary catalogs
bests. The mediocres
both higher and lower
are suppressed in favor
of the singularly savage
or clever, the spectacularly
pincered, the archest
of the arch deceivers
who press their advantage
without quarter even after
they’ve won, as of course they would.
Best is not to be confused with good—
a different creature altogether,
and treated of in the goodiary–
a text alas lost now for centuries.

I am working my way through The Best of It by Kay Ryan.

A Certain Kind of Eden by Kay Ryan

It seems like you could, but
you can’t go back and pull
the roots and runners and replant.
It’s all too deep for that.
You’ve overprized intention,
have mistaken any bent you’re given
for control. You thought you chose
the bean and chose the soil.
You even thought you abandoned
one or two gardens. But those things
keep growing where we put them—
if we put them at all.
A certain kind of Eden holds us thrall.
Even the one vine that tendrils out alone
in time turns on its own impulse,
twisting back down its upward course
a strong and then a stronger rope,
the greenest saddest strongest
kind of hope.