Sophie Cabot Black: Democracy Until

We believed we knew what made us look up
From the embers. And had been trying
To remember, gathering there. Some of us

Could no longer breathe; some of us
Talked too much or too fast, asked
Too many questions; some not enough.

We stood, and watched our shadows lengthen
As if nothing more was owed. How long had we listened
To the agent, to each other, thinking

We were full of choice. Stake by stake, plot
By plot; the sum would never run out.
My animals, your animals;

My barn, your barn; we were never ready
To know the herd. Each coming from somewhere else
Fills in until whatever might be missing

Does not easily fit. And so the field
Becomes the shape the market requires,
And to set fire before heading on

Is also to say it does not matter
Which part is played
But that it gets played. We move faster at the end

Understanding we cannot survive
Our own boundary. Tired of being told we are
How we chose, now too much to own; tired

Of the neighbor behind each door, unsure
Of what is said. To bear the far
Now close; to inherit what we did not make

And now must pay for, finished with doing what we need
To get what we want, knowing
It only begins later, after we tell the story;

How blade by blade the grass returns,
Under rut or drought, cut or torn, under light
That cannot keep to itself, and the wheel

Notches again to the top. Any one of us
Can climb down. And whoever checks the axle
And the bolt, only tightens what will again loosen.

~~~~~

Sophie Cabot Black grew up on a small farm in New England. She has three poetry collections, The Misunderstanding of Nature, which received the Poetry Society of America’s First Book Award, The Descent, which received the 2005 Connecticut Book Award, and The Exchange, which NPR calls “the book for you”. Her poetry has appeared in numerous magazines, including The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic, The New Yorker, and The Paris Review.

Copyright 2024 Sophie Cabot Black. From Geometry of the Restless Herd (Graywolf, 2024). Included in Vox Populi by permission of the author.