Spy Poetry: In Seclusion by Therese Halscheid

Editor’s Note: Imagine if you could free yourself from the rules and expectations of society, step out of the confining clothes of civilization and be your natural wild self. What form would you take? Would you grow fur or feathers? Howl at the stars? Hoot at the moon?

In Seclusion
xxxhouse-sitting in the Pinelands

When, finally,
I learned how to not be in the world,
the earth turned trusting

the forest began sharing
its old rhythms

gradually I wore less
until it was
that I stood unclothed
on the deck each night,
glad for the beginning of fur
on my body.

And my own sound came
from me then ⎯
that primal noise I had,
for years, swallowed.

That noise, the slow starting of fur,
was there for
what darkness allowed ⎯

that soft opening below,
of the dirt breaking
for when the flesh springs.

Therese Halscheid’s poetry and lyric essays have been published in many magazines, among them Rhino, Gettysburg Review, and Tampa Review. Her poetry collections include Frozen Latitudes, Uncommon Geography, Without Home, Powertalk, and a Greatest Hits chapbook award. She holds an MA and MFA and has taught in varied settings including an Eskimo village in Alaska, and the Ural Mountains of Russia. For more than two decades she has traveled to write by way of house-sitting. She especially likes house-sits in rural areas, where she culls inspiration from natural environments. Her photography chronicles her journey, and has been in several juried exhibitions. Her poem “In Seclusion” appeared in Reed Magazine and in the author’s book, Uncommon Geography (Carpenter Gothic Publisher, 2006). Reprinted with the author’s permission.