A braided response to Robert Gray’s poem ‘A poem of not more than forty lines on the subject of nature’ and Mark Leidner’s ‘Having “Having a Coke with You” with You’.
I asked you if you knew the poem
‘A poem of not more than forty lines
on the subject of nature’:
but you were immersed in it, walking
along the nature strip, trying to ignore the subject:
us: we: forty:
we were edging toward it with no more luck than a planet
contemplating leaf litter
& that line that circled above us
as if aerial: not more than children: children:
what is it again, you said:
human nature, forty, no more
lines to offer on the subject: limited
to not more than: knowing it was nature
that it hadn’t happened:
we walked known lines immersed in litter: ignored the trying:
we were happy then: lucky even:
then we weren’t, really: a subject
conceding perhaps that this was forty:
though we contemplated
that edging toward & asked if we knew the offer:
said, yes: circle: subject our children:
litter them, leaf-like:
no more luck: stripped of nature & asking:
we’d tried aerial
towards another planet, as if it hadn’t happened: children
of ignored litter, immersed in the above:
we: yes: knew not more
than arguing, aerial lines & limited offers
as if bargaining a poem
not nature: us: we: it happened: the line:
it happened, it happened:
we said: trying to litter through the lines of children:
it happened:
above forty & the bargain was so leaf-like & limited & happened
only if we asked it: ignore it all & it’s stripped poems: children:
contemplating subject: they ask if we knew:
yes: not more
than: yes: did we bargain: yes: the walking edge:
yes: they ask us if we tried: