Woodburn Tulip Festival Series #2, Pastel, by John Cummings
IT’S NOTHING
“Nothin’ ain’t worth nothin’ but its free,”
-Kris Kristofferson
Driving by the landfill we called “dump,”
its serene green hills and vales, with yellow
candy cane pipes leaking methane
as if it were nothing.
Surprised, I quickly dodge the young squirrel
whirling on the asphalt, hind legs, luxurious tail
swishing like rags, spine severed by a car ahead.
It swizzles in tight, painless circles, so the semi
behind me, closer because I swerved,
flattens the dervish like a gray glove…
…food to be picked at by an eager raven, crow,
jay, quick fox that will take the whole proof
and sickened thought from my road ahead.
Nothing to turn around for, to save: the truck,
the cars behind, the little dancer just a rapt bit,
an instant.
The present is tense when not much of anything
goes (I am very old) and any something
is somehow awry. Or is this just a wan fit
over “nothin’ ”?
I drive almost daily past the ethereal landfill
to Gooch’s beach, expecting the clean horizon,
unless the Nova Scotia fogbank comes on like
philosophy, veiling noumena with faith or reason.
I sit in the car, beached by what I can make of
anything, something. Tidal susserous or roar
obscure my quispering, maundering about nothing.
The squirrel was not put to sleep by Peterbilt,
perhaps to dream.
Some sing Soul, free at last of flesh, flute-ing up,
lighter than methane. Refuting gravity, can Soul
bloom in nothing?
Safe on the oak, the young squirrel shivered, tail
twitched, chittering about the road’s further side…
…relatives? Acorns? A last shiver and leap of faith
leaves the tree, streaks the berm, sure as anything
to get beyond the bright yellow double line,
the asphalt, the atheist traffic.
The landfill is green or snowed in, where anything
went. Hell, it was a dump! That’s something, stuff
buried in strata of bulldozed soil all my lifetime,
since my grasp of trash, before the white, black
plastic bags, sacking what’s human. My tongue flaps.
Lips quiver.
So many old loves, apparitions, beloved fictions, dead,
each less animal now than my words can make them,
buried by topsoil, grass, in composed yards with markers
and engraved stones, nature resolved by the idea
of nothing, the nothing that scares up this mind’s
kaleidoscopic, candid photographs.
“Peace,” “Rest,” the hard stones hum. Nothing
goes unsaid. Ashes and bits of bone poured solemnly,
on waters that reach for the sea. As if the sea were
nothing. This squirrel inscribed by words. So, what’s
to fear? Nothing.
______________
Paul Nelson
Review by Massimo Fantuzzi
Riding along in my automobile My baby beside me at the wheel I stole a kiss at the turn of a mile My curiosity runnin’ wild Cruisin’ and playin’ the radio With no particular place to go (From Chuck Berry, No Particular Place to Go)
The flow of the traffic on the road, life, steadying in our veins, slouched, lulled on our axles. This poem offers us the endurance of a long drive, with thoughts of landmarks coming and passing, carrying but their empty sense and leaving but their mark of nothingness as miles of more nothing are devoured – the roadkill becomes food for others, us, the readers. There’s no rush or desire to get anywhere, no faith in a given terminus or purpose for our travels, crossroads, and shortcuts. Us and the road with its constructs, judges and juries, grammars and syntaxes. A shiftless drive through everything is a drive through nothing as the panorama fades to its disappearance in the murmur of the engine; calm and serenity, as one particular solemn, saturating feeling encases us, that feeling of being on a one-way trip.
Review by Dave Mehler
Thanks Paul–I love this homage to my fear poem, and your own original take–So, what’s/ to fear? Nothing–and also your inserted references to a semi behind you flattening the squirrel (which could have come out of Roadworthy), and your local landfill (and my next book, which you’ve gotten to preview)–thanks friend–I love it!