Localizing

LOCALIZING

It’s the slow work of tightening 

the circle, one concentric ring 

at a time: feed from Jody’s

Farm Supply, who is Edwin Kathy’s

second cousin; eggs from Hillwood—

a friend’s farm—until the chickens brood; 

Tuesday morning readings at the 

Chickamauga Library. Eventually 

you begin to discover the secret of being

self-sustaining, which is the awakening 

to how little sustaining happens

by yourself, how little the self 

whose end is simply to sustain. 

Given time enough, you might begin 

to write poems that open to nothing more 

universal than the morning's mushrooms

opening beneath the Japanese maple, 

or the Wat Buddha Monadham temple 

so oddly placed off Davis Lane,

ringed by Baptist churches and 

the odd Confederate flag. 

If you refuse to leave and dig 

in, you might even find yourself

one day worshiping the local god who dwells

no further than the temple

of the tomato plant, whose delight

is creek-chant and the incense of fresh-cut grass.