Extra Hidden Life, among the Days
Sometimes , when i'm
very tired , i think
of extremophiles , chemolithoautotrophs
& others with power for changing
not-life into lives , of those that eat rock
& fire in volcanoes , before the death
of the world but after the death of a human
, of their taste
for ammonia or iron , sulfur & carbon
, somehow
enough of it to go on ... As workers
taste revolt , they grow
at the vents of oceans , turning mute vapor
into respiration , changing unhinged
matter to hinges , near the rims of sea
trenches or the caves ... Our friend wrote
of writers living in gray hiding,
, of those who love glass
& early freedom , steep sand
& late freedom , sex among gentle
or bitter grasses , those with a taste for
blue or belligerence , obscure lives, she
called them , the writers
of radical mind …
The living prefer life , mostly they do
, they are ravenous
, making shapes in groups
as the dying grow one thought
until the end , wanting more
specifics , desert or delay
until the i drops away into
i am not here , the mineral other
pumps & vast vapors , ridges & shadows beyond
the single life it had not thought of—
Copyright Credit: "Extra Hidden Life, among the Days" from Extra Hidden Life, among the Days © 2018 by Brenda Hillman. Published by Wesleyan University Press. Used by permission.