A Mending Poem for Our Angst

MAYFLOWER CISTERN I FEEL MY PILGRIM WORRY

All day long I feel my pilgrim

worry.  Crude and unforgiving

as the buckle on my boots.  I mark

the boundaries of the town

and then I build a fence.  I build

a pillory and scaffold.  I bring

my gun into the forests.

And my axe.  Inside me.  I hurl

my brittle body at the pines.

I have a plan for them.  A way

to make them useful, which

is God’s compact with the world.

Whatever does not welcome

me I tear asunder.  Whatever

welcomes me was mine to

sack and bring to my knees.

I give the gift of my hunger

to everyone.  And then

I build a fence.  The does

Is certainly a sorceress.

The sparrow was the woman

smiling into the mirror

of the well.  What will I make

of this country?  Inside me,

My pilgrim huddles in the corner

of my heart.  Which I hate

for its hopeful sounding.

Its unwillingness to know

the truth of how broken

and beyond salvation is.

                        Gabrielle Calvocoressi

(published in The New Yorker, July 23, 2018, p.41)