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Arts & Letters
Why does it tear at me so
sometimes-- the tide, the relentless pour
of things that seem to appear from nowhere
to sunder me from peace, from stillness,
from calm-- this jagged jetsam,
toys, books, clothing, shoes and newspapers
shed in piles around the house as if
by packs of unknown creatures that keep
losing their skins-- why does it hurt?
I have ungrateful stories in my head
about it. Ruskin mutters, Have nothing
in your house that you do not know
to be useful and believe to be beautiful;
the ancestors stand watching,
millennial, silent, ragged some of them, all
of them poorer than this, stunned by
the quantity of stuff that pours through
here, the presents, the trash; and with them
the presence of the world's people, the
hungry millions, the ones who wait,
who wonder what can be going on
in America: these things, these voices,
leave contrails of guilt across the sky
of my mind-- and then there is my
desperate wish for beauty, for order,
for everything in its place, for peace. I keep
picturing the Shakers-- hands to work
and heart to God- -and I feel defeated, as if
I should be able somehow single-handedly
to combat this tide of worldly goods, turn it
toward the hungry before it appears
in my living room; as if I keep flunking
some incessant, elemental test.
***
Copyright © 2000 by Tina Tau McMahin. All rights reserved.
"Poem After Christmas" is from Eating the Foam by Tina Tau McMahon.
This copyright protects Tina Tau McMahon's right to future publication of her work. Nonprofit, activists, and educational groups may circulate this poem (forward it, reprint it, translate it, post it, or reproduce it) for nonprofit uses. Please do not change any part of it without permission.
© Copyright 2000-2004 by West By Northwest.org
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