Poem: "A Reply to the Second and Third Houses of the Earth" (Always Coming Home)

[luzula]

Oh, I posted a poem over at AO3 and forgot to post it here. I'm in a book club that's reading Le Guin's Always Coming Home, and wow, I'd forgotten how much I loved that book. Anyway, I was dared to write a reply the poem "An Exhortation from the Second and Third Houses of the Earth", which is in the first poetry section of the book. So I did, and here it is. May not make much sense read on its own.

***

Listen, you people of the Blue Clay, listen, you people of the Serpentine!
Listen, you hunters and fishers and gatherers, you who live on the hunting side!
You look at the farmer and think: he plows like he owns the land.
You look at the shepherd and think: she herds like she owns the flock.
So too may the hunter crow, with mastery over the kill.
The deer may be hunted to scarcity.
The berries may all be picked.
We all may lose the way: us no more than you.
And take care as well, and come once in a while to the planting side.
You speak of equal ground, of running by the side of the deer.
You gather where you may, you hunt and kill, free as cotton seeds on the wind.
But take care you do not make too much of your independence.
The corn in the furrow depends on us, so do we depend on it.
The lambing ewe needs our care, so do we need the lamb's meat to live.
This is what we know on the planting side: that we are bound to each other, that we are not free.
You have been a babe in arms, did your parents own you?
You will be old and infirm and unable to hunt, will you then starve to death?
Come take your place: tend to the corn and the lambs.
It is yourself you tend.

Comments

[princessofgeeks]

Beautiful.

[luzula]

Thanks. : )

[genarti]

Even to someone who hasn't read the book (yet), that's beautiful!

[luzula]

Oh, you should read it! And thanks. : ) Some of that poem is just echoing what Le Guin is doing in hers, though, so I can't take credit for all of it.