mulching and the danger of reading newspapers

 I was having a conversation with a friend about the need to fast from the news at times as a spiritual exercise.  I had also just loaned her a book of poetry by women called Cries of Spirit.  She asked if I had a favorite and I said no, it depends on the moment.  She likes Margaret Atwood so we turned to the index and found this title, "It is Dangerous to Read Newspapers."  It fit our conversation perfectly.  The following week I used newspapers to mulch a weed patch near my  house where I hope to grow some black raspberries.  Here is the poem that got scribbled from the intersection of our conversation, Atwood's poem (copied at the end), and my meager attempt at being a gardener.

Mulching
Margaret Atwood wrote
And I agree
It is dangerous to read newspapers

So I gather the pages
To spread over
Broken down cardboard boxes
Where I hope
Next fall
To plant black raspberries
right outside my bedroom window

Like an addict
I say
I’ll just look at this  one
story of a beloved father killed by a fallen limb

story of a murder victim’s family hoping for no parole

picture of a mother found guilty for murder of her newborn infant son
                        her pregnancy a secret
                                    his murder now public
                                                she faces life behind bars
Have you seen this missing teen? Car found burned
Or this one? Has tattoo on neck
Or this one? Has pierced navel
Or this one? May have a hair weave

I spread out the pictures of
lavender lips
and beautiful food
and premium wines
the happy couple who sold their town home in just two weeks
and all the advice
and empty crossword puzzles
never started

I cover them with warm hay
So sweet in my nose
I want to cry

and walk away

I will return in fall
I will plant black raspberries
Small sticks in the ground will look dead at first

The newspaper will
be dirt under my nails
that will wash away


And here is Margaret Atwood's poem:

It is Dangerous to Read Newspapers
While I was building neat
castles in the sandbox,
the hasty pits were
filling with bulldozed corpses
and as I walked to the school
washed and combed, my feet
stepping on the cracks in the cement
detonated red bombs.
Now I am grownup
and literate, and I sit in my chair
as quietly as a fuse
and the jungles are flaming, the under-
brush is charged with soldiers,
the names on the difficult
maps go up in smoke.
I am the cause, I am a stockpile of chemical
toys, my body
is a deadly gadget,
I reach out in love, my hands are guns,
my good intentions are completely lethal.
Even my
passive eyes transmute
everything I look at to the pocked
black and white of a war photo,
how
can I stop myself
It is dangerous to read newspapers.
Each time I hit a key
on my electric typewriter,
speaking of peaceful trees
another village explodes.
(by Margaret Atwood, 1939-)

Comments

Popular Posts