appealing

The Maynard
Spring 2018

Emily Kedar
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No One Knows How to Be Good

We want to be risky with our long tables,
saying come,
join, eat.
But we don’t
always know
how to be useful
like the leaf
who throws no
argument against
the alder’s body
as she drinks the light
for that wet wood
to thicken in rings.
We don’t always know
how to be still
like a heron
when the moment
calls for stillness,
our knees too weak
to stand so long in one place.
We don’t remember
how to pour over
without emptying
a single drop,
like this honey light
here, in late autumn.
Listen—
what I’m trying to say
is plain:
very often
we want to be good
to each other
and ourselves at once
and we don’t know how.