Timothy Otte
Plume
You said, There’s a plume in the dirt,
under asphalt, mingled with the infrastructure.
I heard, bloom, and thought a field,
goldenrod and fireweed underground,
forgotten. I heard feather, convinced
you’d carved a quill and buried it. You said again,
A plume, and I heard toxic, but couldn’t
understand how it moved, how it got here.
You said, Try thinking of it as a glacier,
cutting a path through the dirt and bedrock,
Passing through mantle, crust, pooling in low places.
Think of it as ice and stone that will
not melt, can’t reject this poison.
Wait a generation, wait two, see how it has grown.
Unlike any glacier, this bit of wrong,
this darkness, this blind giant will grow as it moves,
until our species diffuses. You said,
Only then will it disappear like smoke.
You said, Think of it as smoke, molasses-slow,
moving through the earth. I saw a cloud, rain,
but I understood it was nothing so rejuvenating.
I still couldn’t fathom it, couldn’t think of earth
as permeable nor endangered. You said, It’s bedrock
and dirt, porous, not so solid, not immune. I wondered,
What smoke can move through stone? A ghost,
this plume stands beside our beds. We turn again,
restless. I still wondered what it was, what mix
of malices had crept under our homes. Were they
piped or freighted in? How will they leave? What use
were they before their new lives began in the soil?
You know how to translate the terms of chemicals,
their effects on body and earth, but you shook
your head. What matters is the mess, not its name.
You said, This plume will taint the dirt
for millennia, shifting and spreading. Tendrils
of filth, almost alive, that will not disperse.
You said, It’s almost alive and after that
I could only think of it as a beast. You said,
This plume, this giant plume... and I imagined
a goliath with feathers whose wings and limbs
had grown weak and shriveled, but with remnants
of former strength clinging to it like shadows.
It moved like smoke made solid, the invisible
made definite stretching its neck to turn, like a bird,
beak snapping at the roots of trees. The creature
found its way to the bluffs and through limestone,
burst into the air above the river and screamed
like a pained demon as it crashed into the water.
There was no splash and hardly a disturbance
in the air. How stunted and sick, that feathered
thing. It did not move the hearts of my neighbors.
It evoked no pity from me. It sullied the waters
out of spite as it died. I expect it to be reborn,
monstrous phoenix in a fallow field.
originally published in Poetry City, USA 2015
You said, There’s a plume in the dirt,
under asphalt, mingled with the infrastructure.
I heard, bloom, and thought a field,
goldenrod and fireweed underground,
forgotten. I heard feather, convinced
you’d carved a quill and buried it. You said again,
A plume, and I heard toxic, but couldn’t
understand how it moved, how it got here.
You said, Try thinking of it as a glacier,
cutting a path through the dirt and bedrock,
Passing through mantle, crust, pooling in low places.
Think of it as ice and stone that will
not melt, can’t reject this poison.
Wait a generation, wait two, see how it has grown.
Unlike any glacier, this bit of wrong,
this darkness, this blind giant will grow as it moves,
until our species diffuses. You said,
Only then will it disappear like smoke.
You said, Think of it as smoke, molasses-slow,
moving through the earth. I saw a cloud, rain,
but I understood it was nothing so rejuvenating.
I still couldn’t fathom it, couldn’t think of earth
as permeable nor endangered. You said, It’s bedrock
and dirt, porous, not so solid, not immune. I wondered,
What smoke can move through stone? A ghost,
this plume stands beside our beds. We turn again,
restless. I still wondered what it was, what mix
of malices had crept under our homes. Were they
piped or freighted in? How will they leave? What use
were they before their new lives began in the soil?
You know how to translate the terms of chemicals,
their effects on body and earth, but you shook
your head. What matters is the mess, not its name.
You said, This plume will taint the dirt
for millennia, shifting and spreading. Tendrils
of filth, almost alive, that will not disperse.
You said, It’s almost alive and after that
I could only think of it as a beast. You said,
This plume, this giant plume... and I imagined
a goliath with feathers whose wings and limbs
had grown weak and shriveled, but with remnants
of former strength clinging to it like shadows.
It moved like smoke made solid, the invisible
made definite stretching its neck to turn, like a bird,
beak snapping at the roots of trees. The creature
found its way to the bluffs and through limestone,
burst into the air above the river and screamed
like a pained demon as it crashed into the water.
There was no splash and hardly a disturbance
in the air. How stunted and sick, that feathered
thing. It did not move the hearts of my neighbors.
It evoked no pity from me. It sullied the waters
out of spite as it died. I expect it to be reborn,
monstrous phoenix in a fallow field.
originally published in Poetry City, USA 2015