Pantoum

Perhaps the universe is an extinguished building
with blue banners strung along
and the forest, more like a commodity
bordering bushes and asphalt,

something else to string blue banners on.
Never was restoration swifter:
the leafless trees, the asphalt
less splintered and more splendid.

Never was restoration swifter
with its mightier solutions
less splintered and more splendid
snipers, dynamiters, colorful bombs.

We please ourselves with mightier solutions
picnics under blue spruces
snipers, dynamiters, colorful bombs
the guardians of what we might call "home rights."

At picnics under blue spruces
we clamor after the news
and its employees, the guardians of "home rights"
the media mustering "one mind."

It's news,
the decision to nobly save rather than meanly lose
a pretense of mustering "one mind"
finally secures its truth.

The decision to nobly save rather than meanly lose
our flag
secures its truth
as a squirrel secures its nuts by hiding them in the ground.

Our flag—
a souvenir of having been here before
a squirrel's nuts, deep in the ground.
But travel, travail, and the Method's mistakes

all souvenirs of having been here before
haunt us and taunt us and call us names.
But travail, travel, and the Method's mistakes
mark a different season, nuts rotting, bulbs blooming.

Each season haunts us and taunts us and calls us names
until finally the universe is an extinguished building,
a different season, nut rotting, bulbs blooming
and the forest, a commodity.

Copyright © Sasha Steensen, 2006.

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Sasha Steensen is the author of A Magic Book (Fence Books) and correspondence (with Gordon Hadfield, Handwritten Press). She teaches Creative Writing at Colorado State University.