Some did not want to alter the design
when the failure message
said massive problem with oxygen.
Some wanted to live full tilt with risk.

By then we were too weak for daily chores:
feeding chickens, hoeing yams,
calibrating pH this and N2 that . . .
felt like halfway summitting Everest.

We didn't expect the honeybees
to die. Glass blocked the long-wave
light that guides them.
Farm soil too rich in microbes

concrete too fresh ate the oxygen.
We had pressure problems,
recalibrating the sniffer. Bone tired
I reread Aristotle by waning light.

Being is either actual or potential.
The actual is prior to substance.
Man prior to boy, human prior to seed,
Hermes prior to chisel hitting wood.

I leafed through Turner's England,
left the book open at Stonehenge.
A shepherd struck by lightning lies dead,
dog howling, several sheep down too.

The painter gave gigantic proportion
to sulphurous god rimmed clouds
lightning slashing indigo sky
while close at hand lie fallen stones

dead religion, pages dusty
brown leaf shards gathering
in the gutter yet I cannot turn the page
wondering what I am and when

in the story of life my life is taking place.
Now what. No shepherd. No cathedral.
How is it then that I read love
in pages that lie open before me?


About this poem
"'Human Habitat' is from a sequence titled 'Biosphere 2: Theory of Art,' written while I was in brief residence at this architecturally stunning science research facility outside of Tucson, Ariz. Its early history was sensationalized when a team of 'Biosphereans' were sealed into the habitat for two years, an experiment within a closed biosphere in anticipation of space colonization. The poem eavesdrops on one of those residents, struggling to make the experiment come out right materially and spiritually. The site is now used by the University of Arizona for research on climate change."
-Alison Hawthorne Deming

About Alison Hawthorne Deming
Alison Hawthorne Deming is the author of "Zoologies: On Animals and the Human Spirit" (Milkweed Editions, 2014). She teaches at the University of Arizona and lives in Tucson, Ariz., and Grand Manan, New Brunswick, Canada.

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The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day[at]poets.org.


(c) 2015 Alison Hawthorne Deming. Originally published by the Academy of American Poets, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate