Maybe I should quiet down,
silence myself, listen
for just a few moments
to things that aren’t said
in the world’s fearful chatter
where mouths are like guns.
a literary journal published by the Black Earth Institute dedicated to re-forging the links between art and spirit, earth and society
Maybe I should quiet down,
silence myself, listen
for just a few moments
to things that aren’t said
in the world’s fearful chatter
where mouths are like guns.
The pitch of the world
has gotten higher, more
steady, more frantic,
more like a shriek,
maybe like wailing
toddlers. Restrained
only by mortality, we are
such a mischievous species
misbehaving—put us back
in the dusty playpen;
Homo sapiens isn’t mature
enough to participate
in the universe,
but what on earth
is expected, God being
a single parent and all?
Yvette A. Schnoeker-Shorb is the author of the chapbook Shapes That Stay (Kelsay Books, 2021). Her poetry has appeared in The New York Quarterly, Camas Magazine: The Nature of the West, Medical Literary Messenger, AJN: The American Journal of Nursing, Weber: The Contemporary West, Rise Up Review, Terrain.org, Plainsongs, and elsewhere. She holds an interdisciplinary MA and has served in various capacities as an educator, a researcher, and an editor. She is cofounder of the 501(c)(3) nonprofit natural-history press, Native West Press.
Other works by Yvette A. Schnoeker-Shorb »
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