Situational Greed

A Poem

I said, Hungry for experience; then I laughed, having lost the ear of the cat who came to shit in my garden.

But I caved in on myself, placing myself in relation to powerlines and garden sheds, trees and old well covers (concrete with rebar for handles), then began to feel this was a sinking, spinning

catastrophic world which was reducing me to tiny shreds. I tried a louder laugh, expansive, I thought

the virtue of which was lost on my crowd of invisible woodland creatures. Of course the woods here, at the top of the hill, are sparse and mostly for appearance. Trees ushered in as aesthetic individuals but also to clean our air of carbon dioxide.

But in this situation, I shivered now (it’s December, after all), and was still withdrawing. It was past time to go inside.

J.D. Harms 2020