3 a.m. November 11, 2016 Turtle Cove Cottage Po’ipu, Kaua’i
By Chris Cummings and David Cummings
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
D:
Drain the swamp he brays the president-elect from his gold leaf
bedroom in his gold leaf tower Drain it he inveighs
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
C:
Horror-clown they called him that German newspaper the Germans
who know from horror-clowns alright
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
D:
They’ll come first for Dems border-crossers next then lives that matter
and those who pray five times a day then neighbors then you then me
C:
They’ll unbury and burn all the oil behead the Appalachians for coal
eeeeeeeeeeeeeee tunnel the earth frack out the natural gas
All that and us pyred and lit rapacious fire The black air we’ll breathe
D:
A fear governs them, unappeasable
I mean the ones he owns his bottom-dwellers murk-blind uprooting
eeeeeeeeeeeeeee cypress black gum red maple decay miasmal
eeeeeeeee That’s a swamp must smell sweet to him
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
C:
But a swamp, my love, is an ecosystem: life-giving, life-sustaining, densely
fecund A place where dinner swims by and all you have to do is make a net
to catch it Or if you haven’t got a net your strong bare hands will do
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
D:
Saddam Hussein finished off the Mesopotamian swamps in the mid-nineties
draining them and thereby killed the livelihood and culture of an ancient
people and killed the ancient wetland A long misery
C:
humans animals plants birds of many kinds, all lost flamingos
pelicans herons sacred ibis Basra reed-warbler African darter
Mesopotamian crow… Those murders his atrocity It must be spoken of
A vulture perches on my heart this night and tears off pieces Does that
mean I am dying already dead or am I hoping for death now?
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
C:
Now I sit alone at a table on the lanai of this cottage in the 3 a.m. darkness
ceiling fan turning slowly almost noiseless The fan light is dim but
there’s light enough for writing and I can hear the ocean a block away
The waves how they break a ceaseless sound bound to the moon
But the moon too is leaving us inches each year moving forever away
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
D:
And she will be so far from us waves no longer rise and crash and seas
are drained of vigor the world’s ocean beaches tame as inland shores
C:
no tides
no tide pools
no clams
no clambakes
just a quiet almost lifeless lapping at our feet
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
C:
I mourn for you tonight my mother-father earth But I think in the end
you will survive us if the miniature suns we’ve so meticulously construed
so faithfully sheltered in buried silos like precious grain if they’re never
lit their poisons I think would be more than even you could repair
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
D:
But our own species? Maybe this descent to madness is you thinning
our herd returning us to the ancient cave damp and sooty and full
of shadows Then you could start over the Wild drained of us build a
new offspring if that’s your longing more merciful than our kind
C:
One able to feel for the souls of all your children the furred the
feathered the scaly ones too Who will look out again on the stars
reflect on their mystery and be reflected if if I could believe but the
night vulture has not lifted from my breast has not yet had its fill
Christine and David Cummings live and write together in Menlo Park, California. They’ve both had some poems published here and there, and David’s collection, Tancho, was published by Ashland Poetry Press in 2014. “3 a.m. November 11, 2016” came from a journal entry Chris wrote right after the election, while they were in Hawaii celebrating their 10th anniversary, feeling the opposite of celebratory. They keep working on the poem; this is the most recent version, edited for length. A slightly longer version lives on their blog, which you can read here.
Reading recommendation: Tancho by David Cummings.