No thank you by tony hoagland

Wisdom isn't scarce; it

never was. The average bookshelf

of a Psych major named James

at Cumberland Community College

will yield all the wisdom

that was ever necessary

to end war, teach kindness,

face death,

sprout honesties

like flowers, fashion

codes of understanding for a

working world.

We have

everything we need,

don't know what the

hell it is, don't want it, won't

remind each other, refuse

to listen.

What makes it worse

are the constant bulletins

from all those liars who keep saying,

We are looking

for solutions--Getting

close to--Poised

to make the

breakthrough--Any day now.

Not true. We

already have chosen the strange

garments of confusion

that we will die in; we love

the thrill of enemies;

we burn

through beauty like it was

wrapping paper;

we breathe

the smoke of our distraction

like it was oxygen.

So this morning,

I will just

walk into the woods off Marsden Lane,

seize a clump of dirt and pine-straw

in my fist,

and kneel,

in a manner no different from

any peasant in a jerkin

in the fourteenth century

asking for salvation--

saying, Preserve me, God,

at least

from the pretense

that I am searching.

I am lost by choice

and

all the evidence suggests

I relish it.

• Read the poem at least once, out loud. Then ask yourself, do you think we have all the wisdom we need to create a “working world?” And if so why aren’t we paying attention to it? Reflect on your answers in your journal.

• If you went to the woods to beseech the deities, what would your prayer be? Reflect in your journal.

• Write a list poem naming 10 pieces of wisdom to follow if we are to find ourselves again.