Human Habitat by Alison Hawthorne Deming

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend June 23, 2015   Human Habitat   Alison Hawthorne Deming

Some did not want to alter the design when the failure message said massive problem with oxygen. Some wanted to live full tilt with risk.   By then we were too weak for daily chores: feeding chickens, hoeing yams, calibrating pH this and N2 that . . . felt like halfway summiting Everest.   We didn’t expect the honeybees to die. Glass blocked the long-wave light that guides them. Farm soil too rich in microbes   concrete too fresh ate the oxygen. We had pressure problems, recalibrating the sniffer.  Bone tired I reread Aristotle by waning light.   Being is either actual or potential.  The actual is prior to substance.  Man prior to boy, human prior to seed, Hermes prior to chisel hitting wood.    I leafed through Turner’s England, left the book open at Stonehenge.  A shepherd struck by lightning lies dead, dog howling, several sheep down too.   The painter gave gigantic proportion to sulphurous god rimmed clouds lightning slashing indigo sky while close at hand lie fallen stones   dead religion, pages dusty brown leaf shards gathering in the gutter yet I cannot turn the page wondering what I am and when   in the story of life my life is taking place.    Now what.  No shepherd. No cathedral. How is it then that I read love in pages that lie open before me?            Copyright © 2015 by Alison Hawthorne Deming. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “‘Human Habitat’ is from a sequence titled ‘Biosphere 2: Theory of Art’ written while I was in brief residence at this architecturally stunning science research facility outside of Tucson. Its early history was sensationalized when a team of ‘Biosphereans’ were sealed into the habitat for two years, an experiment within a closed biosphere in anticipation of space colonization. The poem eavesdrops on one of those residents, struggling to make the experiment come out right materially and spiritually. The site is now used by the University of Arizona for research on climate change.” —Alison Hawthorne Deming   Alison Hawthorne Deming is the author of Zoologies: On Animals and the Human Spirit (Milkweed Editions, 2014). She teaches at the University of Arizona and splits her time between Tucson and Grand Manan, New Brunswick, Canada.   Photo credit: Cybele Knowles Poetry by Hawthorne Deming   Zoologies: On Animals and the Human Spirit   (Milkweed Editions, 2014)   "The Epistemology of Rosemary" by Geffrey Davis "We Manage Most When We Manage Small" by Linda Gregg "Apocalypse" by Gerald Stern 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