arkansas again

Ben Davis

bears, diamonds, “natural” 

“no trespassing” with a camera overhead, parking lots from horizon to horizon, slash piles smoldering in hot december days. 

seems natural now. 

but i know not seems. 

where are the bears? the diamonds are long gone. rice seems natural now, the ducks in stuttgart, oxys along the 30, the low whispers upstairs and downstairs, those are natural to us now. 

tell me, will you, what is natural about this? these facades from bedroom to church, so deeply woven over decades that peacekeeping is survival, and death would be truth. 

in my place would you speak different? i hope i will, sooner rather than too late.