New Poetry by Pawel Grajnert: “Michigan”
PARTICLES THAT FLOAT / image by Amalie Flynn
Michigan
Before the salmon-full,
the alewife-less,
tropic blue
Mussel-filtered water,
Was a green lake
of indigenous fish.
of indigenous fish.
A fishing industry.
Before that logging.
After eradication.
Before that trading.
Before that, words of people
comprehensible over
and around us –
comprehensible over
and around us –
Before most of ours –
that’s the take,
that’s the take,
if you’re wondering –
Describing the bounty.
The ease of it.
The ease of it.
The rise and fall
Of waves on an inland sea,
One of the great
Cycle-keepers.
Of waves on an inland sea,
One of the great
Cycle-keepers.
Let the gunk go down its gullet
Is one way back to the true
Inheritance of all that violence.
Is one way back to the true
Inheritance of all that violence.
The other is to let
The moist, rising earth –
the great Kankakee –
Absorb – more than once more
The particles that float about,
and entomb them
In some future peat.
The moist, rising earth –
the great Kankakee –
Absorb – more than once more
The particles that float about,
and entomb them
In some future peat.
