POETS’ CORNER: FEELA FOR COLUMBUS DAY

07 Oct POETS’ CORNER: FEELA FOR COLUMBUS DAY

Editor’s note: Author/poet/recently retired teacher-writing instructor David Feela is a regular contributor to Telluride Inside… and Out. His latest book, “How Delicate These Arches: Footnotes from the Four Corners,” a collection of essays, is available at Between the Covers Bookstore. We implored David to send us a post about Columbus Day. Below is his response.

The New World

Don’t interrupt. Enough of the world has
been altered by muting the impulse for
one thought to entertain another. Though
it is anachronistic, I’m thinking
about all conquest, how Cortez accepts
Montezuma’s gold like a Mastercard,
no credit limit. Three short years and
he bankrupts history. Two-hundred and
fifty more Captain Cook thinks he’s Jesus
Christ, island-hopping for the Crown while the
colonies revolutionize war. How
poetic that an Aztec god demands
the sacrifice of a living, human
heart. Or that Cook ends up as a minor
deity at his own last supper, his
teeth yellow an any treasure map. How
many good intentions lie scuttled on
the ocean floor. Every set of bones on
the planet shines like a constellation
out of a darkness that stays locked inside.
As Copernicus charts his universe
he’s thinking for us all. The mind unfolds,
a sail filled with the force of expression,
moving swiftly toward its next hesitation.