i
\n
\ngood friday<\/p>\n
heading south<\/p>\n
in a black car<\/p>\n
\nto an evening<\/p>\n
stations of the cross\u2014<\/p>\n
piano, violins\u2014<\/p>\n
\non the way<\/p>\n
two buzzards<\/p>\n
sharing<\/p>\n
\nthe bloody carcass<\/p>\n
of a run-over mink<\/p>\n
they\u2019d dragged across<\/p>\n
\nthe street<\/p>\n
to the brown weeds<\/p>\n
edging the woods<\/p>\n
\nstanding with the carcass<\/p>\n
between them<\/p>\n
their death-angel wings open<\/p>\n
\nthey rip through fur<\/p>\n
eating<\/p>\n
enough<\/p>\n
\nto expose<\/p>\n
the bones<\/p>\n
and bloody flesh<\/p>\n
\nthey peck at it<\/p>\n
and pull it<\/p>\n
apart<\/p>\n
\nii
\n
\non the way<\/p>\n
back home<\/p>\n
at half past nine<\/p>\n
\nit\u2019s too dark<\/p>\n
to see<\/p>\n
the mink\u2019s body<\/p>\n
\nnobody<\/p>\n
would regret<\/p>\n
the mink\u2019s loss<\/p>\n
\nexcept<\/p>\n
perhaps<\/p>\n
the buzzards<\/p>\n
\nnobody next day<\/p>\n
would look to see<\/p>\n
if that mink<\/p>\n
\nhad been devoured<\/p>\n
except perhaps<\/p>\n
me<\/p>\n
\na joseph<\/p>\n
of arimathea<\/p>\n
curious<\/p>\n
\nabout death<\/p>\n
and my friend<\/p>\n
sharon\u2019s<\/p>\n
\ntwenty-six-year-old son jay<\/p>\n
who died<\/p>\n
yesterday<\/p>\n
\nin california<\/p>\n
nowhere to be seen<\/p>\n
ever again<\/p>\n
\nthe shock<\/p>\n
a bomb<\/p>\n
to her<\/p>\n
\nthe shock<\/p>\n
unbearable<\/p>\n
she so loved him<\/p>\n
\ntears for her<\/p>\n
& we helpless<\/p>\n
in her loss<\/p>\n
\niii
\n
\nmadeline tells me<\/p>\n
she dreams<\/p>\n
she\u2019s in a house<\/p>\n
\nriddled with doors<\/p>\n
and suddenly she\u2019s<\/p>\n
outside at a wedding<\/p>\n
\nwhen two giant<\/p>\n
white birds<\/p>\n
lift me up<\/p>\n
\nout of the crowd<\/p>\n
and fly away<\/p>\n
with me<\/p>\n
\ni ask her<\/p>\n
\u201cdid you yell<\/p>\n
\u2018drop the keys!\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n
\nshe says<\/p>\n
the next thing<\/p>\n
she sees<\/p>\n
\nis me<\/p>\n
coming around<\/p>\n
the corner at kb\u2019s<\/p>\n
\njust fine,<\/p>\n
the swans set me down<\/p>\n
i am back<\/p>\n
\nfrom my<\/p>\n
disneyworld<\/p>\n
ride<\/p>\n
\niv
\n
\nwill we all<\/p>\n
be coming back<\/p>\n
forever?<\/p>\n
\nis this<\/p>\n
a karma world<\/p>\n
or something else?<\/p>\n
\nafter all<\/p>\n
the paining struggles<\/p>\n
of this life<\/p>\n
\ndo we<\/p>\n
get to choose<\/p>\n
how we live<\/p>\n
\nthe next one,<\/p>\n
if there is<\/p>\n
a next one,<\/p>\n
\nor is it<\/p>\n
determined<\/p>\n
by how we lived<\/p>\n
\nthis one?<\/p>\n
does<\/p>\n
a murderer<\/p>\n
\nbecome a fly<\/p>\n
smacked by<\/p>\n
a swatter,<\/p>\n
\nthen a flea<\/p>\n
bitten by<\/p>\n
a dog,
\nthen a dog,
\n <\/p>\n
who, knowing<\/p>\n
human love<\/p>\n
\nat last,<\/p>\n
resolves to<\/p>\n
never never<\/p>\n
\nand becomes<\/p>\n
a loving child<\/p>\n
raised<\/p>\n
\nby loving parents<\/p>\n
when suddenly<\/p>\n
killed<\/p>\n
\nin a bad accident<\/p>\n
to start<\/p>\n
over again<\/p>\n
\nas a mink<\/p>\n
until a car<\/p>\n
ignores<\/p>\n
\nand kills it<\/p>\n
and two buzzards<\/p>\n
in andover<\/p>\n
\nnew jersey<\/p>\n
make<\/p>\n
a last supper<\/p>\n
\nof your<\/p>\n
immortal<\/p>\n
carcass i good friday heading south in a black car to an evening stations of the cross\u2014 piano, violins\u2014 on the way two buzzards sharing the bloody carcass of a run-over mink they\u2019d dragged across the street to the brown weeds edging the woods standing with the carcass between them [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3435,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[158,153],"class_list":["post-3406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","tag-mink-pond-by-winslow-homer","tag-via-wikimedia-commons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3406"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3437,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3406\/revisions\/3437"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n
\n
\nSander Zulauf is editor emeritus of the Journal of New Jersey Poets and an editor of The Poets of New Jersey: From Colonial to Contemporary. In addition to editing the first ten years of the Index of American Periodical Verse, his books of poetry include Succasunna New Jersey, Living Waters<\/em>, and Where Time Goes<\/em>. His new work includes the “transfigurations” of haiku by Bash\u014d, and \u00adhis translation of Veinte poemas de amor y una canci\u00f3n desesperada (Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair) by Pablo Neruda. His newest book, Basho in America<\/em>, won the Eric Hoffer award. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"