NOTE: We 21st-century humans are still trying to perfect the recycling of our stuff—be it waste, material castoffs or kitchen food to nurture the garden soil. But in nature, engulfing us and which we are a part, is the picture of perfection. In her poem titled Decomposition, Libby Crews Wood of Jackson Hole employs the word as a metaphor for the start of a glorious new beginning of shapeshifting. No season is more full of revelation than spring. "I wrote this poem while seated in Grand Teton National Park alongside a gnarled piece of driftwood that has not drifted anywhere for decades. Thought it might suit these times in this place," she says. Enjoy. —Mountain Journal
Decomposition
by Libby Crews Wood
It’s really hard
to decompose in the West.
First you must grow
and live and compose
yourself for decades,
until, eventually
your tissues cease
to draw water from the ground
in which you are rooted.
At last you begin
to lose form
shed your needles
your limbs
your bark
your fear, and you no longer
expect or need or want
from this Earth --
or even this century.
And you wait.
You wait for the insects
the rodents
the lightning strike
the ice, the wind, the sun
to weaken your hold --
even though you lost
your grip long, long ago.
And you fall.
Transposed now
from upright
to downright ready --
but it’s not over.
No, it is in this state of repose
that you will consider
the fine contours of your form
the now twisted, horned, greyed and broken
lines of the life
you composed.
About Libby Crews Wood
Libby Crews Wood is a poet, mother, wife, grade school teacher in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and the daughter of a ranching family whose roots in the West go back seven generations.
