THE THREAD | Revisions of America
You are revising America again.
Substantial edits for the latest edition.
Trying to reconcile
these two competing narratives:
This is not who we are and This is who we are.
You’ve gone through several drafts.
Red-lined and improved some.
Crumpled and waste-basketed others.
You would like to start over but can’t.
Plenty of blank pages but no clean slate.
You shift the setting. Change the scene.
Swap out characters. Seek a better angle.
Nothing seems to get it right.
Scene: A diner in Canyon City, Colorado.
Formica tabletop. Vinyl benches.
Plates of dry scrambled eggs and bacon.
A heavy pour of sugar into the mug of black coffee.
The same two old men in the same booth
eating the same breakfast at the same hour,
talking to anyone who walks in.
This is who we are and not who we are.
Scene: The slaughterhouse floor. Cogs turn.
Ropes and chains pull more meat
into the room, reduced of its skin.
A mop sloshes blood across the floor.
The woman at the far end of the mop,
her clenched hands, her outstretched arms.
This is not who we are and this is.
Scene: The wind drifting over the Flint Hills.
A gentle rise and fall across thirty miles of tallgrass.
Occasional crags of flint peeking out.
Walking a path carved deep by wagon wheels,
a young man looks down to check his phone.
This is not who we are not.
Scene: A mob on the Capitol steps.
Characters void of character development.
Climbing walls. Smashing windows.
Roaming hallways. Chanting. Growling.
Pounding on the chamber doors.
They now drive this story forward.
Edit: Are they now driving this story forward?
Edit: They are in this story, not the story itself.
Edit: They are who we are and are not you.
Edit: You are you and not the mob
to the extent that
you are not the mob and are you.
Scene: Eleven years before the insurrection.
Two young lovers visiting the city for the first time,
wandering among the monuments and blossoms.
Astonished by the scale of it all.
Astonished that you could feel
at once so momentous and yet so small.
You have now entered this story.
The two of you sat at the foot of the Capitol steps
in the glow of a dome like a waning moon.
You kissed. And kissed. And kissed
until an armed guard approached
and politely asked you to move along.
What category of threat did you pose?
And how soon could you pose it again?
You returned to the hotel holding hands
to scheme and dream and kiss and kiss and kiss.
You cannot revise America
without writing yourself into the story.
This is not who you are, and is who you are.
This is what you have done.
This is what you have left undone.
Your small days will not cease to be
swept up into the historic.
This is not the end.
~ ~ ~
Image: from Crystal Bridges Museum
~ ~ ~
What I'm reading: Wislawa Szymborska's Collected Poems, George Saunders' The Braindead Megaphone, Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way
What I'm listening to: Patty Griffin's Living with Ghosts, Lucinda Williams' Essence, lots of Motown
What I'm drinking this week: Lots of water
~ ~ ~
Deep breaths y'all,
Andrew
BUSKER JAR: If you want to support my projects this year with a lil' bit of patronage, I'd welcome it. You can use my PayPal (andrewjohnsonkc@gmail.com) or Venmo (@Andrew-Johnson-45954).