Poem of the Day: “A Matter of Degree” by Ellaraine Lockie, Poet of the Week

Songs of Eretz Poetry Review is pleased to present “A Matter of Degree” by Ellaraine Lockie, Poet of the Week.  A brief bio of Lockie may be found here: http://eretzsongs.blogspot.com/2015/11/poet-of-week-ellaraine-lockie.html.

A Matter of Degree

Ellaraine Lockie

In Montana when anything injured comes your way

Whether it limps on two or four legs 

Chases after the tail of sanity

Or suffers still and silent in the wreckage of time

It's your responsibility

You might be able only to feed a hunger its next fix

To invest a quick call to an animal's owner

To afford the few dollars that will drive 

a migrant family to the next town

Or to sign a petition that preserves 

the Eye of the Needle in the badlands

But your people know the necessity of communal

You've inherited the knowledge 

Three generations of families peppered 

over an endless prairie was all it took

to evolve the instinct of obligation 

And when one of you moves away 

to another kind of vastness in a city

This birthright still runs through your blood

There it's sometimes hard to leave the house

for fear of finding another stray cat or dog

Of meeting too many street beggars for the budget

Or a lonely old man at Starbucks

who can't stop talking about World War II

Reading the headlines, turning on newscasts 

or answering the phone becomes 

intolerable when there's no more to give

You start to feel naked in the midst 

of clothed indifference 

and raped by the mass of need

The only way to cope is to move further 

and further away from the edge of community  

One degree at a time toward the center of self

Poet’s Notes:  I grew up in a small farming community on the Montana prairie but moved away and into cities after graduating from college.  I began going home (Montana will always be home) for lengthy periods many years ago.  I stay in a cabin on land that used to be my family’s homestead and is now a horse ranch, and I continue to be active in my nearby small farming town.  Living close to the land and its people for a while every year keeps me grounded and helps me to cope with the fast pace of the San Francisco metropolitan area where I live full-time.  This rotation of places, along with travel to other locales, greatly influences my writing.  Not only does it provide fodder and different perspectives, but it stimulates the senses and the power of observation—all important qualities for a writer.

“A Matter of Degree” resulted from the unavoidable comparison of places.  Although the poem tends to throw a negative light on city life, other of my poems do the opposite, because cities offer experiences, attitudes and lifestyle that don't exist in rural areas.

Editor’s Note:  I enjoy the narrative here as well as the sobering moral lesson.  "A Matter of Degree," is the end poem in Lockie’s latest chapbook, Where the Meadowlark Sings, her first published collection of Montana poems.  It can be ordered on Amazon. com or through Encircle Publications. 

The poet supplied the graphics that accompany her poem today.  They are two photographs of Montana as seen from the cabin referenced in the Poet’s Notes.