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Declaring the Wild - Poem

Literary Review,  Summer, 2000  by Eileen Hennessy

   Eight things a day, that's all
   they ask us to declare.
   We know you have billions, they say.
   So we take our places in the line
   and say what words we can.
   On the quiet side,
   there's declaring to Customs,
   declaring to a court,
   declaring last year's income
   for taxes. There are also
   declarations of intent and love
   and truth-telling, but here

   we're moving toward the wilder side,
   a chilly wind blows, a white plastic bag
   chatters along a path,
   angels of the Lord declare,
   Here's where you'll build your town,
   So we take our places in the line
   and build the stories we live by,
   pile word upon word into houses.
   Out here. On this sandy coast.
   In this country of gale-force winds.

Eileen Hennessy, an adjunct associate professor in the Translation Studies program at NYU, has had her poetry published in The Paris Review, Western Humanities Review, Prairie Schooner, and in several anthologies

COPYRIGHT 2000 Fairleigh Dickinson University
COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group