Monday, May 17, 2021

The Casual Abandon of a Particular Dandelion

 by Jefferson Hansen

written on a picnic table at a solo picnic

"Thus are the world’s troubles due to the love of knowledge.” Chuang tzu

The scent of Cutter
insect repellant. A chittering,
the sound, I guess,
of some insect.
Someone with a degree, somewhere,
knows. But that person isn't here,
now.
The state of the world
hangs in the balance
over insects. This I believe
though I can't prove it
in a formal kind
of way. But it's here,
now. Because things often
seem stitched together
by the smallest things,
the particulars. The insects
hold everything we call "everything"
together. I push them
away with repellent. Farmers
kill them with pesticides,
not unlike bombing the
microfauna of the gut
with antibiotics. A bird
titters; I can't identify.
My knowledge has splattered
onto the grass, beneath
the picnic table, and lies there
as pointless as it has
always been. After days
of looking through search engines
for an article by an academic
who could support and aid
credence to an insight I had,
I found the trail starting at 
Wikipedia. She makes the same
argument I do, but with
a credentialed oomph. Yeah,
we need that sometimes.
Her book is on the way.
The insects are repelled or killed.
The birds twitter because
they twitter. And I write for
I write. I once described it
as akin to breathing, for me.
I would say, "screw the system,"
but the system isn't worth the effort.
There's a wide river nearby.
I hiked four hours this morning.
Some larger force, perhaps larger
meanings, I don't know, propels
all of this in myriad directions, 
and it is not close to human—
some magic dance we participate in
well beyond our possible ken.
And the insects will die.
And the fabric will tear.
And it all won't matter
to ahuman meanings, that
went on before us, that
go on beyond us, moving
from insect to insect, from
alpha centauri to a single
blade of grass, from the bleeding
moon to a plastic bag
rolling across the asphalt in
the breeze. It is all so
much beyond us, all of us.
I surrender all my knowledge
to the meaning inherent in
a single dandelion, announcing
its yellow with a casual
abandon.

____________________________


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