David Banach




Even in Spring, you can feel like giving up.

But then you turn a corner and the apple trees

are in bloom, and in such profusion, an instant

gift of numberless petals, confusing the eyes

and overwhelming the mind, just there, even

for me.


I thought of them as I watched the pendant

fob of some wind chimes, twirled by an errant

breeze, twisting on its string and slow and return,

conserving momentum, a periodic oscillation,

like a suspended mathematical equation, and

I felt the kindness, the loving indifference of

things.


It doesn’t know I exist. It doesn’t care.

Inexorable, like the blossoms, and not 

for me. Such a comfort, when one decides

to go on, after having thought of giving up,

to know no one is watching.





David Banach is a queer philosopher and poet in New Hampshire, where he tends chickens, keeps bees, and watches the sky. He likes to think about Dostoevsky, Levinas, and Simone Weil and is fascinated by the way form emerges in nature and the way the human heart responds to it. You can read some of his most recent poetry in Isele Magazine, Neologism Poetry Journal, Passionfruit Review, Terse, and Amphibian Lit. He also does the Poetrycast podcast for Passengers Journal.