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Megan Kaminski

From "a very lonely place, with unbroken horizon, under a cloudless sky"

Pre-storm stillness and skunk-spray

lingering morning sounds

lawnmower and your favorite Beyoncé

neighborhood creaking to stream

downriver each patch of sheet

moon-soaked from the night

ghosted sleep that can’t

forget hand on thigh on neck

illuminated by spark by glow

each day the task of erasure: what

keeps and scraps that must

be buried in clay-streaked sod

baby bluestem grass overturned tray

car shadow against the pinking sun

 

*  *  *

 

I woke left hand covered

in darkness sun hiding from ongoing

drip drop rivulet of mud outset flanking

bedroom window I woke to day salted

by the Atlantic: the trace of Whitman

and grayish sky the tuck of shirt into trousers,

feet burying sand into earth I woke today

and again until I couldn’t wake or wait

each waking a turn through houses

clouds crumble above dissolve into

breath, wind across tall grasses

across plains swallowing syllables


The title of this sequence is borrowed from Arthur Schopenhauer’s description of the prairie in The World As Will and Representation.

Kaminski.jpg

 

 

Megan Kaminski is a poet and essayist—and the author of three books of poetry, Gentlewomen (Noemi Press, 2020), Deep City, and Desiring Map. Prairie Divination, her collection of essays and oracle deck with artist L. Ann Wheeler, turns to the plants, animals, and geological features of the prairie as guides for living in good relation to each other. She is an Associate Professor in English at the University of Kansas and leads community poetry workshops throughout the state of Kansas through Humanities Kansas.

Bear Review

8.2

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