POETRY

On Failing to Hike Mt. Monadnock

By G. C. Waldrep     VOLUME 49.4

Vertical Divider


The body is a machine.
The machine is a machine;
they move together
& apart, systems a-dwell
in bleak firmaments.
I am embarrassed,
I cannot begin to examine
all that earth has done
to us (the body being,
as we know, mostly earth
& the machine too
if one counts iron, glass).
At dusk a music
glistens in the evergreens;
the lights drop back
& everything is life, life
but here, in this morning,
past the dawn hour
of hawk & deer, my
organs do not harmonize.
The country roads
snake in & out of being
rude maps of themselves,
obscene graffiti
in spite of best-laid plans.
I fear a puncture
in my tires, & in my gut.
The dream of splendid
isolation declines
into love’s savage reaches,
loneliness vs. being
alone. Waymaster, I
lift daysong from my split
lip, wipe soil from
my cuff. I will not mistake
desire for its crude copy.
I modest you,
machine among machines
as in some lower valley.





G. C. WALDREP’s most recent books are a long poem, Testament, and a chapbook, Susquehanna. He co-edited The Arcadia Project: North American Postmodern Pastoral with Joshua Corey. He lives in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, where he teaches at Bucknell University, edits the journal West Branch, and serves as Editor-at-Large for The Kenyon Review.

VOLUME 49.4