Diapheromera arizonensis
Arizona walking stick
Karen Falkenstrom
Dear Life
"further main silence career miles defense makes.
leader scenes eastern commission practice wants work osama.
Everything had been done that was humanly possible."
-recent email spam
I. An Environment
For months, the news has sifted like dust
through the fissures of the hours.
Caught in the usual eddys,
thumbing its nose
at the dried-out weather stripping—
it gets everywhere.
You could say, it has a knack for survival,
but I'd say otherwise.
Survival requires intention
so deeply ingrained
it defies our notice.
News, on the other hand,
is arbitrary; it has
no genetic advantage, is wholly
uninvested in itself
and cares not for what it spawns.
What's worse, the news
calls attention to itself. It is not
evolutionarily wise.
What matters most deeply
is usually ignored.
It is subtle.
It might continue infinitely.
II. A Bug
Since you look like a twig
and you walk,
you are so named.
A poetic sensibility
might wish you referred
to the object by my door,
made from a saguaro rib and
meant for the long desert hikes
I take too few of.
But in truth, your name
is as unassuming as you
would like to appear.
There, among the
thousands of branches
locked for hour and days
in the throes of carrying on,
quaking as the leaves quake,
sure of nothing
but your inestimable life.
~~~~~
Karen Falkenstrom received an MFA from the UA creative writing program in 1992. Over the next decade, she served as Director of the Tucson Poetry Festival, Event Coordinator at the UA Poetry Center and co-founded Kore Press. In 2002, she co-founded Odaiko Sonora, Tucson's Japanese ensemble drumming group, and later established Rhythm Industry Performance Factory, AZ's only artist-owned performing arts incubator space. Honors include a 2008 YWCA Woman on the Move award and the 2009 Arizona Arts Award. She is currently a performer and teaching artist.