by Robert Rice

“But we were not born to survive

only to live” W.S. Merwin

Our future has risen like a fist

and it is hard for us now

to admit it is here. Machines digging

darkness, water thawing that was frozen

in another age, air that says

reconsider your choices. There is

a man on TV selling blindfolds, selling coffins

full of money, selling hubris, selling fear.

Selling. All that we do

is touched with shadow yet we stare

transfixed at the lights.

And yes, I take it personally.

This is still my world.

But in this meadow’s calm eye, light

forages along the aspens and a flock of

tanagers flash yellow and orange,

singing the song they’ve all agreed on:

It is worth it.

And the clear water—

something kissed by nothing—

flows down from the mountains

to speak in its strange tongue about

what is old beyond knowing, and all day long

in its infinite patience it tries to teach me

the words for this. Now.

Robert Rice’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in numerous literary magazines. Rice’s chapbook Space that Carries Light Forever was selected by Jane Hirshfield as one of two chapbooks in the Wildhouse competition to be published in 2024, and one of the poems has been submitted for a Pushcart Prize.