2018 Gauntlet Participant: Devan Watson

 

“A sense of immediacy and intimacy. Beauty in the mundane.”

 

BigDog’s Prayer

 

All hail the fenceline, harbor of small life

As well the field edge and construction plastic

Scurrying with the flow of prey.

 

Praise be the hummocks of grass in snow

And frozen clots of earth in tractor tracks

From which to dig mice.

 

Glory to the hillside with thickets of honeysuckle

Tangled with underbrush and game trails

Where deer might spring from sleep.

 

Thanks for the hollow of a dead tree

Tilted over the edge of the creek,

Home to heron who rattles as he flies.

 

Wonder at the blessing of running water,

Cold creek in which to cool the belly

Path of indignant ducks to be pursued.

 

Snake in the undergrowth of ivy,

Rabbit racing down the trail

Squirrel, inattentive, fucking under a bush.

All life, abundant and chaseable,

Forever and ever,

Amen.

 

March 2018

 

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Devan Watson has made Lexington their home since attending Transylvania University in the early 90s. A lover of the liminal, they live and write from an often uncomfortable intersection of queerness, mental illness, and chronic pain. As the stay-at-home parent of a teenage boy, Devan spends as much time as possible hanging out with dogs. “I curse like a sailor, laugh like a fiend, and cook too well to ever be skinny.”

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