TAMARA MADISON

To Be Human

To be born like the calf, like the pup, like the slick,
hooved goat
To fill our lungs with first air
To be drawn to Mother’s breast
To take in the world around us
To learn to move in this world
To pick things up and put them in our mouths
To break things, make things, change things
To speak, to sing, to make music, to dance
To feel joy in living, and anguish
To misunderstand, to rue
To make friends, to make meals, to love, to laugh
To birth slick wild pups of our own
To worry, to work, to tire of working, to age
To hunger, to need more
To believe we know what’s right
and learn too late that we were wrong
To struggle with those around us
To take up arms, to wage war
To kill and be forced to kill
To be like every other living thing
To shuffle down a road that ends on a cliff
To join the heaving sea of all who have gone before

Tamara Madison is the author of the chapbooks “The Belly Remembers” (Pearl Editions) and “Along the Fault Line” (Picture Show Press), and three full-length volumes of poetry, “Wild Domestic”, “Moraine” (Pearl Editions) and “Morpheus Dips His Oar” (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions). Her work has appeared in Chiron Review, Your Daily Poem, the Writer’s Almanac, Sheila-Na-Gig, Worcester Review and many other publications. She is a swimmer and a dog lover. More about Tamara can be found at tamaramadisonpoetry.com.