Poem by Charles Harper Webb

Temple’s Temple
                                                            
         —for Temple Grandin
 
Skinned and tanned; chopped into T-bones,
          rump roasts, hanging tender;
                  ground into burgers; chewed to slush;
 
                  mixed with saliva, ripped by enzymes, 
          nutrients sieved out, dispersed 
by sewers, bayous, rivers, seas—they return
 
by the millions to praise the one
          who said, Nature is cruel, 
                  but people don’t have to be.  
 
                  Gleaming in gold on Temple’s
          Temple, her words cast a glow 
calm as the way the dead walk 
 
through sinuous chutes she rendered 
          free of the old, terrifying shadows, 
                  glinting puddles, flashing chains.  
 
                  Comforted by their own kind, 
          the living surge through the curves 
all matter loves: curves of canyons, 
 
of high grass in wind, of leaves 
          and flowers, surf and streams--
                  curves every herd flows into
 
                  naturally.  Gentle as cows soothing 
          their calves, the living moo, then move
to join the dead: come back to answer
 
the autistic girl who said, on seeing 
          a beloved horse shrouded by a sheet: 
                  “Where do they go?”

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Author of 11 books of poetry, Charles Harper Webb's latest book, Brain Camp, was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in 2015.  A Million MFAs Are Not Enough, a collection of Webb’s essays on contemporary American poetry, was published in 2016 by Red Hen Press.  Recipient of grants from the Whiting and Guggenheim foundations, Webb teaches Creative Writing at California State University, Long Beach.    

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