W Tracy Dillon, 12/2/2019

Current Occupation: Teacher


Former Occupation: Quality Control Lead, Technical Publishing House


Contact Information: W Tracy Dillon lives with his family on a farm in rural Oregon where they practice permaculture farming techniques. He is a faculty member at Portland State University.  However, he’s a lot more fun than this bio would seem to indicate.

 

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Meditation 95

 

When I was a little girl

Mother gave me milk to drink

And a selfless thought to think

About the whole wide world

 

When to a woman soon I grew

And began to taste some blood

I simply could not get enough

From other kids in school

 

So I set me on a path

To get a job and love a boy

(Which is all a grown girl’s joy)

But on my way I had a crash

 

Scrapes and bruises quickly heal

It’s boo-boos that don’t go away

So mine decided it would stay

All my mights its pains to feel

 

Through all of this never was seen

By friends who knelt beside my bed

And told me it’s all in my head

The secret that my story means

 

Their wounded thoughts I try to mend

When they visit to kill time

Even though they say they’re fine

Mostly just by listening

 

But on the days when I am full

Of the clotting blood they spill

From my lips their necks I peel

Thinking easy prey is dull

 

Separating in my mind

As mother suffered me to see

Lamenting our minority

The bleating sheep from my sharp kind

 

That’s when I feel I’m most alone

Beyond all measure overdrawn

Who needs my thirst I cannot love

And nowhere think of to go home

 

So I wandered all my days

Prowling like a wolf disguised

Chewing thoughts behind bright eyes

Thinking how the moon glows phase

 

One day I found a slippery pit

Where climbing up the sides of it

Was not the business of the weak

Although its depths they often seek 

 

Setting jobs and boys aside

I’d settled on career to find

So of the owner of the field

I asked if pay the pit might yield

 

He offered me uncounted wealth

For maintaining the general health

Of the creatures that call home

The pitted pasture that he owns

 

At first I feared what I might do

When all that meaty blood I viewed

Because my charge was to protect

I ignored each woolly neck

 

To my new boss could I explain

The complications in my brain?

“Once weekly to myself I stay

I cannot work on a Sunday.”

 

That deal he said would be just fine

So for six days I spent my time

Dragging kiddies from the pit

For which their feet were so unfit

 

Finally came my day of rest

So all my care I meant to quit

I settled myself in my seat

And that is when I heard the bleat

 

A sheep had fallen in the pit

All I could think was “Goddamn it.”

All I asked for was one day

For six was all that I’d get paid

 

Of course I crossed the muddy field

And at the rim of the pit kneeled

In its deep shadows nothing saw

But heard repeated frightened “baahs.”

 

Hovering there upon that brink

I’ll tell you what I thought I’d think:

That the kid owed me its life

For assuming I’d be nice

 

My kindness would be not to kill

With that in mind I forward fell

Into the hole and broke my foot

With sheep I now could not climb out

 

Still there I’m lying in the mud

Wondering if I am good

To save another on to feed

Made me the creature that should bleed

 

I know the sheep I do not blame

I know that I am not the same

For help I must raise bleating voice

I do not think I have a choice

 

He’ll come to work on Monday morn

The owner of this fecund farm

Until then I’ll wait to see

If first he’ll lift the sheep or me