the deepening ground

The fragility of life surrounds us. It’s easy to numb ourselves to it or be inoculated by fleeting pleasures. But the reality of death remains. Does that mean I spend all my time living in despair, fearing the quiet feet of death? Of course not. Life is beautiful and just being in nature is enough to revive my soul. And, once again, I’m back with Wendell Berry, lying “down where the wood drake / rests” (“The Peace of Wild Things”). In fact, one of my former students sent me a choral arrangement of Berry’s poem on Thursday evening. What a wonderful way to deepen before teaching my AP English Literature course at 8:00 AM, Friday morning! (You really should listen to it – click the link!)

And yet the poem below never quite arrives at that peace. Death and brokenness are disturbing. And though this poem began as a longer reflection on hitting a deer driving home from a trip to the grocery store and how quickly we move on from such experiences without much thought, such as in W. H. Auden’s “Musée des Beaux Arts,” I ended up severely cutting the piece down until it became little more than a short reflection on the crushed cardinal, a fleeting, but enduring, moment in my life.

For a similar reflection on death on the highway see “Traveling Through the Dark” by William E. Stafford.

Cardinal

By Vincent H. Anastasi 2024

I am disturbed
by the inconsequential
cardinal splayed out
in the middle of the road,
adhered to asphalt
by its own blood —
the crumpled tissue,
wrecked red fan,
cold rigid flame.