To Begin
by Bethany Reid
Somewhere someone has to make a beginning.
It must be made out of nothing
or out of a landscape utterly other,
of trees bent in the wind as if with the want
of what begins.
So a pumpkin seed is planted, or the door
on a birdcage closed, or all the birds let go.
Thoreau plants his nine bean rows.
Anna Karenina slips into a party dress.
Gulliver wakes to find himself bound by a thousand threads,
and by the time he sits up, breaking them,
it has already begun.
In the beginning, nothing too large.
A raindrop streaking a window pane.
A leaf falling.
A horse is saddled.
An alarm clock ticks toward five a.m.
Here is our beginning,
back in the dark, back at the quiet gesture—
a hand cupping a breast, a baby’s cry.
A man stoops to pick up a feather,
a girl swings her leg over the horse’s back,
the alarm sings.
So, like a bride
you wake into your life to find yourself bound,
your white dress woven of so many threads
you can’t tear them away. Don’t cry.
It’s your story.
Take it in your hands.
Begin.
