Wirehair Collie Poem by Noah Smits

A wind that blows in no direction whips
and scatters drifts of leaves. Each way you face,
it meets you there, reminds you nature is
a struggle. Lukewarm folks need not apply;
the strong are strengthened and the weaklings die—
but what of those who find their proper place

amid the fray, not in it? Hear the groan
of distant engines, taste the cookout air,
and smell the weed from neighbor's window blown.
Without you, all these things will still be there.

A spindly, sickly collie rushes by.
Objective, still, you are, a gawking gob
not intervening, feeling now your mind's
perspective floating toward the speeding car.
Your smoking neighbor left some door ajar—
as wheels and roads are left to do their job.

Become organic yet become machine,
retreat advancing, leaving on the shelf
the wanting I; then in some place between
the collie and the car, you find yourself.