Photo by Zhen H.
Raccoon Generations
Karen Schnurstein
“If you want to know more about the raven: bury yourself in the desert . . . Let only your eyes protrude.Do not blink– . . . Wait until a generation of ravens has passed away.”
–Barry Lopez, Desert Notes
“What is that?” you say,
pointing at some eyeball in the leaves
in the forest.
I laugh at you and keep walking,
over the pinecones in the trail.
I am taking you with me
on my little tour.
I show you how I fed this raccoon
out of my hand
one night on the cottage porch.
I show you the chipmunks in the woodpile, too.
And I show you the swans out by the dock,
slippering s’s on the waves.
They are waiting for us,
I tell you.
But you refuse.
And I throw my bread alone.
So this is your plan?
I yell from the dock.
“Shhhhh,” you say.
This is the plan?
To come here,
and question my eye?
“What was that?” you demand.
I don’t even know!
I don’t remember any raccoon,
I don’t really remember the chipmunks,
nor all the swans we must have fed.
I am crying,
ready to drop off the dock,
fall in with these swans,
and float to the family who used to wait for them here . . .
my family,
on the dock,
waiting with bread in our hands . . .
I say I’d like to outwit you, Barry,
but it’s this fence in my head I’d like to outwit,
or else this time,
time that seems to sneak cards and cheat
days from days
and days between now and then.
Oh, I could hollow some fat tree
and stand in it for something like a century,
hibernate,
and listen–
“You must stay longer.”
Yes,
until I know the raccoons,
all of them,
and the hundred lakes,
horses,
and cows
I've flooded past
in my traveling too fast.
I must stay until I know every moth
breathing around those sweaty garden nights.
Until I know the crackling seat of that passionate swing
Mr. Frixen strung up in the woods.
And my fish, frying in some awful pan.
And all the fish my father unhooked
and threw back–
I need to know them,
every one.
I am patient, and will stay.
I will stay long,
after my death.
By then the birch trees themselves will have fallen asleep,
generations of raccoons will have lived,
all, gone to their private graves,
like memory,
secret,
and dead.
Karen Schnurstein
“If you want to know more about the raven: bury yourself in the desert . . . Let only your eyes protrude.Do not blink– . . . Wait until a generation of ravens has passed away.”
–Barry Lopez, Desert Notes
“What is that?” you say,
pointing at some eyeball in the leaves
in the forest.
I laugh at you and keep walking,
over the pinecones in the trail.
I am taking you with me
on my little tour.
I show you how I fed this raccoon
out of my hand
one night on the cottage porch.
I show you the chipmunks in the woodpile, too.
And I show you the swans out by the dock,
slippering s’s on the waves.
They are waiting for us,
I tell you.
But you refuse.
And I throw my bread alone.
So this is your plan?
I yell from the dock.
“Shhhhh,” you say.
This is the plan?
To come here,
and question my eye?
“What was that?” you demand.
I don’t even know!
I don’t remember any raccoon,
I don’t really remember the chipmunks,
nor all the swans we must have fed.
I am crying,
ready to drop off the dock,
fall in with these swans,
and float to the family who used to wait for them here . . .
my family,
on the dock,
waiting with bread in our hands . . .
I say I’d like to outwit you, Barry,
but it’s this fence in my head I’d like to outwit,
or else this time,
time that seems to sneak cards and cheat
days from days
and days between now and then.
Oh, I could hollow some fat tree
and stand in it for something like a century,
hibernate,
and listen–
“You must stay longer.”
Yes,
until I know the raccoons,
all of them,
and the hundred lakes,
horses,
and cows
I've flooded past
in my traveling too fast.
I must stay until I know every moth
breathing around those sweaty garden nights.
Until I know the crackling seat of that passionate swing
Mr. Frixen strung up in the woods.
And my fish, frying in some awful pan.
And all the fish my father unhooked
and threw back–
I need to know them,
every one.
I am patient, and will stay.
I will stay long,
after my death.
By then the birch trees themselves will have fallen asleep,
generations of raccoons will have lived,
all, gone to their private graves,
like memory,
secret,
and dead.