Pastoral Resistance

By ROB SPILLMAN

Catskill, New York

A fair friend resists the pastoral,
insisting glacier collapse fire tornado sixth
extinction privilege the privilege of writing
about a peaceful wood walk. Walking in the
woods, I resist as well, as well. A sudden freeze
after the first hopeful warmth has silenced
the peepers. The resident red-shouldered hawks
have ripped apart another guinea fowl, its speckled
black and white feathers in a neat circle
in the bare winter wheat field, no trace
of blood or body. The dog is bored by feathers,
dashes after gleaning robins and burrowing
field mice, far from the Russian bus shelter
where she was found, far from her Brooklyn
youth. We’ve fled together, to the pastoral, to
walk the woods and fields, to plant blight-
resistant American Chestnuts and Catskill-
native flowers and ferns. If we burn or
are swept away, we will do so with muddy
paws, witnessing until the last pastoral page. 

Rob Spillman co-founded and edited Tin House Magazine from 1999 to 2019 and is the author of the memoir All Tomorrow’s Parties from Grove Press.