The Mutilated World and Light, More New Light

Finding a dying dragonfly in our tiny courtyard pond yesterday, I was reminded of my childhood desire to be, if not a "bug doctor," then at least an entomologist. Both entomology and etymology have long fascinated me.

I so saddened. I wanted to help. I couldn't. I moved the dragonfly from the water and into to a shady damp spot. Even in its broken state, half-missing one of its wings, it was strange and beautiful. Which reminded me of the world. I had the same helpless, it's-too-far-gone feeling with this alien-eyed insect that I sometimes do with the planet. It reminded me of the poet Adam Zagajewski's beautiful poem, here translated by Clare Cavanagh:

Try to Praise the Mutilated World

Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June's long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of rosé wine.
The nettles that methodically overgrow
the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world.
You watched the stylish yachts and ships;
one of them had a long trip ahead of it,
while salty oblivion awaited others.
You've seen the refugees going nowhere,
you've heard the executioners sing joyfully.
You should praise the mutilated world.
Remember the moments when we were together
in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
You gathered acorns in the park in autumn
and leaves eddied over the earth's scars.
Praise the mutilated world
and the gray feather a thrush lost,
and the gentle light that strays and vanishes
and returns.

And that in turn reminded me of another poem I adore, Spencer Reece's "At Thomas Merton's Grave," which I may have mentioned before in this blog:

We can never be with loss too long.
Behind the warped door that sticks,
the wood thrush calls to the monks,
pausing upon the stone crucifix,
singing: “I am marvelous alone!”
Thrash, thrash goes the hayfield:
rows of marrow and bone undone.
The horizon’s flashing fastens tight,
sealing the blue hills with vermilion.
Moss dyes a squirrel’s skull green.
The cemetery expands its borders—
little milky crosses grow like teeth.
How kind time is, altering space
so nothing stays wrong; and light,
more new light, always arrives.