I Was Wrong

 

I was wrong

I was wrong about

having too much to say

about you I was

wrong about the problems

we’ve created I

was wrong we look

at them all

the time I was

divorcing myself

from this kind

of natural world

I was wrong there

too I was passing

over cornrows

or some central

valley metaphorically

speaking I was wrong

about reading

carefully they’ll

definitely see

I was wrong

even though I’ve

spent a great deal

every place I’ve

been I feel native

I feel equally loyal

sloven upon the wild

wrong wrong wrong

I pack useless

landscape in my

car I been to

Tennessee I been

to my painterly mode

of regarding

this chronic particular

I acknowledge

the artificiality

“mowed and limed”

it ended up

unnatural grass

well I was

wrong I was

utilizing those symbols

in essence

in celebration

of the grapple

with perhaps the only

thing that could

be the smallness

in the turning

the turn that comes

near to me

nearest to me 

________________________________________

David Bartone was born in Lavallette, NJ in 1980. He has some recent poems in The Laurel Review, Thermos, Denver Quarterly, EOAGH, and Handsome, and also a chapbook, Spring Logic, with H_NGM_N. He lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.