Redefining

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REDEFINING


I wouldn’t call myself a prepper, 

but I don’t laugh anymore

at those who whisper of a dark mass

gathering there, just 

below the horizon line. 


And is it odd if I no longer find

conspiracy theorist a fair label 

for one who acknowledges 

that with so much silt in the 

water it's foolish to say with certainty

what big fish is stirring it up? 


I don’t think living in fear is what

I’m doing when I don’t teach my daughter

that we know for sure 

what keeps to the shadows in the woods

behind our house, that I wouldn’t

advise her to go chanting

beneath a hemlock tree. 


And would I be a fool

if sometimes I still 

go to bed with a strange lightness, 

because by this line of reasoning there’s 

a good chance that it’s more 

than the carbon dioxide from our 

breath that makes the plants 

grow when we speak to them?

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