Wuthering Slights

Wuthering Slights

“Writers were

pathetic people”

—Ted Hughes,

“Wuthering Heights,”

Birthday Letters

___________

It was pretty much—

Over with when we got there

The open moors, the prairies—

A decomposing, forsaken quarry

Dreadful drab flaking slabs—

Rubble of limestone & fenceposts

_________

I just wasn't as ambitious—

As Emily Bronte among the ruins

I sulked in the moody prairie—

It was right up my dark alley

Amidst the rubble & ruins—

Crumbly stonework, ghost towns

_________

I breathed it during night-drives—

The burnt-out, worn-out remains

All the failed efforts, failed hopes—

A highway through stone rubble past

Doing what Emily Brontë did—

Writing the Heathcliff big goodbye

__________

Letting the plains wind blow—

Tall prairie grass always restless

Letting Louisa tell her story—

Her notion of child-idiot me

Peering thru my Kansas envions—

Clear-eyed gaze like Bronte’s double