From the recording A Triumph, In Its Way
The poem is the turning point in this triptych, where we turn away from our human awareness of death and see our predicament from the outside. The lowly tick may have something to teach us. And maybe we too can hunger for our own humanity.
Mitch: Spoken words
Crickets: Crickets
Lyrics
Tick, Questing
The tick awaits its passerby,
back tick legs fixed upon a tall grass blade
in still air, the front tick pair
outstretched and curved like sister ribs below the sternum,
but thin like hair, like a matched pair of nerve wires
leading, left and right, from mammalian spine. The tick waits,
leans toward humanity, leans toward the smell
of blood and source of blood, leans toward becoming,
in some empty part of itself, more fully human
than any human, drinking human, gut fat with human, to grow
vulnerable and crushable, its humanity soft,
dusky white, and overswelling from below
its dark tick carapace.