poetry

The Inevitable Place
by Mookie Katigbak

"First the mind, then the pain, then the echo."
-Adam Gopnik

The Japanese knew well to see life from one remove,
To intend spring by writing of snow, or plums
In the orchard after a frost; to foretell
Life's ebbs and flows by the moon's vicissitudes.

Like so, I have learned to tell rain by dragonflies
In the field, I have memorized August
By the garden's wild hibiscus, all suspense
Suspended by the bedrock certainty of what's next.

At the end of a season, my heart grinds
The difficult into what can be made plain
-First the mind, then the pain -
I crank up the levers, the pulleys, the weights, and
then/

With what speed do I strip away
Snow, unlearn seasons, flowers' names -
The sum of all my losses

Vanishing as I run toward the inevitable place:
Body prior to pain and the weight of the mind,

Where I am younger than the world. I become the wild.

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