In Five Years, Only A to Ant
The Oxford English Dictionary remains
a testament to obsession, passion.
After seeing Rocky, Dick and I argued
over whether the word could carry
a positive connotation, I insisting it could.
Didn’t he remember
Magnificent Obsession?
Was that an oxymoron?
The entry for the little word set
is 60,000 words long. In ancient days,
great stones were hacked out,
rolled or muscled many miles
to leave us massive monuments,
long logs wrested from afar
in the desert to beam cathedral ceilings.
So much we do is inexplicable.
Do I wrestle blades of grass home
like an ant, losing the scent, wandering
in circles, perhaps stepped on
or swept away? Yet on and on goes
the procession. I pronounce obsession
life. But then, perhaps, I, too
could be called crazy.
Carol Hamilton of Oklahoma has recent and forthcoming publications in Louisiana Review, Pontiac Review, Sanskrit Literary-Arts Magazine, Poet Lore, and others. She has published 17 books: children's novels, legends and poetry, most recently, Such Deaths (Vac, 2014). Hamilton is a former Poet Laureate of Oklahoma and has been nominated seven times for a Pushcart Prize.