"Listen" by Marian O’Brien Paul

1968
























2013
























    

“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says ...” Rev. 3:22

Springtime, I a new bride
my spouse a dairy farmer’s son
now an Airman First Class
sent to serve at NORAD

Our first house, a cottage perched
on the rim of a mountain-made bowl
the Indians named Manitou Springs
because of healing mineral waters …

Gift of the Manitou, the Great Spirit
medicinal springs where no killing
could occur, where ailing members
of enemy bands came without fear …

Comfy on my couch, door screen
sieving pine scent from the wind
Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring
open on my lap, I read her words

Eager to share, I soon discerned
a boy who grew up on a farm
in the heyday of pesticides
was not ready to listen

Though the residues persist, we
are forbidden to poison earth
except to fight malaria; but
lusting after oil is lawful

Puncturing the ocean floor like
adolescents popping pimples
hydraulically flushing the soil
for fuel, no matter the scars …

Let the Manitou, Great Spirit
declare the earth off-limits
forbid its fracture; let humans
frail creatures, let us listen ...


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Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Marian O’Brien Paul has lived in Turkey, Ireland, and in several Midwestern states but mostly Nebraska. A retired teacher of writing and literature, in 2007she moved to Chicago, Illinois. In April 2013 her poem “Cahokia Mounds, Illinois” appeared in The Midwest Prairie Review (Univ. of Wisconsin, Madisonl), and “Legacy of Apple Trees” appeared at  Spherical Tabby.  Other of her poems can be found in the “Poetic Asides” column, Writer’s Digest (Feb. 2011) and in The Stony Thursday Book (Limerick, Ireland, 2010), as well as in various journals, magazines, and e-zines over the years.