Miracle Fatigue
When the blossoms of the winter camellia
glowing white as bone China cups
through the late-February afternoon gloom
don’t give rise
to even a glimmer of delight
I figure I’m just tired
of getting my spirit teased
by every trivial outburst of beauty.
But later when I notice
drops of dew
suspended from the fence wire,
each bead reflecting another whole world
like a necklace of disembodied gods’ eyes
and I don’t shudder or gasp,
I realize I’m suffering
revelation overload.
Yeah, I know: any moment’s
run-of-the-mill exquisiteness
will never come again,
but I just can’t seem to absorb
any more amazement. I’m sick of epiphanies,
weary of wonders.
Dear world, grant me
a few more weeks of restorative boredom.
Your glories will not be diminished
by the absence of my attention.
Come spring, with luck,
I’ll be porous again.
Charles Goodrich’s latest volume of poetry, Watering the Rhubarb, which includes the poem above, has just been published by Flowstone Press. He is the author of three previous books of poetry and a collection of essays, and he co-edited two anthologies, Forest Under Story: Creative Inquiry in an Old-Growth Forest and In the Blast Zone: Catastrophe and Renewal on Mount St. Helens. He lives and writes in Corvallis, Oregon. FMI: charlesgoodrich.com.
Read more by Charles Goodrich appearing in Terrain.org: “Orpheus Intercedes,” a Letter to America poem; “Long-Term Ecological Reflections: Art among Science among Place” (with Frederick J. Swanson), “Stretching Attention: Long-Term Science and Creative Writing,” and “Four Dispatches from the Interface.”
Header photo by Lapo Chairat, courtesy Shutterstock.
