«I don't want to repeat…» — Summary

Joanne KygerContemplative

I don't want to repeat the same mistakes over again, or the mistakes somebody else made just so I can have the experience of them. See, fucked up again. Live and learn. And off the excessive fondness for one's own self knowledge, untested, but reigning supreme. That leads me more astray, every day. What we commonly know in the air, in our dreams, what chooses continually & continually to grow, the obvious under our noses, is this life. Yearning in blindness. The weed has a name, is quite proud of itself, builds a community with other weeds, birds hop through. The imported domestic is a labor of love, but a labor, such a labor. At home here, no single thought is my thought. It whispers through the air in sweet misty fog, in bright sky blue.

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The speaker begins with a blunt wish: not to keep making the same mistakes, or to borrow other people's just to have the experience. She admits to failing anyway ("fucked up again") and then turns on her own habit of trusting what she thinks she knows, which she says only leads her further astray. Against that self-certainty, the poem sets what is plainly in front of us: things growing in the air and in dreams, "the obvious under our noses," which is simply life.

The weeds are a good image of this. They have names, take pride in themselves, and form communities, while birds hop through. Cultivated, imported plants take real work. By the end, the speaker feels at home and senses that no thought belongs to her alone. Thought drifts through fog and blue sky. The mood starts out rueful and restless, then settles into a calm, humble acceptance.

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