Heaven by Nick DePascal

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend December 15, 2014   Heaven   Nick DePascal

The pigeons ignore us gently as we scream at one another in the parking lot of an upscale grocer. The cicadas are numbed by their own complaints, so numbed I won’t even try to describe the noise and tenor of their hum, but hum they do like a child humming with his fingers in his ears. Which, coincidentally, is what our son is doing. Red shopping carts crash together, and even the humans walking by do so dumbly, as if to say, no comment. As if two red-faced adults in tears is as common as the polluted air they breathe and keep reading about in Time and Newsweek, but are clueless as to what to do about it. Is this why we’re separating our recycling by glass, by plastic, by paper? Or why we’re buying organic produce at a place that smells like patchouli and port-o-potties? I ask you. Pigeons scoot, and finches hop, and cicadas shout and shed themselves into loose approximations of what we might have in a different time called heaven.            Copyright © 2014 by Nick DePascal. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “In ‘Heaven’ I'm interested in examining a seemingly mundane occurrence—a couple fighting in a parking lot—and unpacking its absurd and beautiful details and possibilities. What, if anything, does this situation have to say about ‘big’ issues? What if everything—everything—is really contained in these smallest of moments?” —Nick DePascal   Nick DePascal is the author of Before You Become Improbable (West End Press, 2014). He teaches at the University of New Mexico and Santa Fe University of Art and Design and lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Most Recent Book by DePascal   Before You Become Improbable (West End Press, 2014) "What Are They Doing in the Next Room" by Bruce Smith "My Teacup" by Alli Warren "Untitled [Is is]" by Srikanth Reddy Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038