“They never will go to law for my meat; they prefer the shell.”
-Henry David Thoreau
Why has it taken me so long to read this man? I’ve been resisting the world of economic strategy at the cost of my personal ethics. I’d determined to bear whatever results rather than lay down whatever it is I deem as right. But now solutions are coalescing. I’m eager, excited to move forward AND support my family. Plus, as a bonus, heading to Treasure Island for the weekend.
The orbs spinning in their elliptical trajectories
spinning too our little fires
our telescopic fascinations
the grass stretched thick layers of green
a gushing milky fountain singing in the heat
in a soft spot next door
camped a woman with her cat in a bag
her eye gazing through a hole made
in a cardboard shoebox lid
some sensibilities went spinning away
in a crowd slowly transformed
in that intersection of light
color became hushed
and a river flowed where drummers did
the thing they do
glinting off the rivulets of cooling whirlpools
an architecture shuddered
wildflowers draped their make-believe stories
across the distance between here and a future here
we sheltered our eyes
and spun in our elliptical orbits
vaguely aware of the gateway between this world
and the next
Funny that
you feel its light, its heat
its life giving radiance
but if you look into its face
you go blind
that all these most important things
are happening off in the periphery
swords and sticks and stones laid aside
the eye turned away, sees more
the unsaid, untouched
turning the world round
and we just objects of broken flesh
clinging to frayed edges
of all the things we can’t consider
My birthday approaches. Wonder of wonders, reading on solar eclipse, this one on Sunday is annular not total. The penumbral shadow of the moon will pass over the fiery disk of sun and create a ring. It’s better up north in Redding. There’s a sundial bridge spanning river there. I’m ready to see it, join the audience, don some cardboard glasses. Sunflower seeds, moon pies, cosmic dust. I happen to be happy.
Several days ago, a great lizard appeared at my back door. He was brought there in my cat’s mouth. I extricated his body at the base of some concrete steps and watched him climb one by one to the top, his sleek green head rounding each precipice. Days before this, a bee swarm moved into a vacated hole in the black walnut tree situated in the front yard. Immediately, construction was underway, it must have frustrated an unknown neighbor, as she appeared some hours later, a loud baby squirrel with lots to say. I walked up towards her as she had climbed down the trunk and wondered if she needed my help with anything, she made for my toes and I backed up. Sharp tail snakes live here. A couple times there have been albino ones. They are the cutest snakes imaginable. At this moment, a cherry tree drips with yellow hued fruit, taking on a rosy blush, one cheek only. Grape vines in bloom climb high into the oak stretching up from the alley and sprawl all over the back fence. Baby fruit trees are being coddled. The garden takes form despite Johnson grass and Bermuda grass and Morning Glories and Burr Clover. Bullfrogs have lived here. Opossums and Raccoons cause mischief at night and bats come streaming out at dusk when the heat gets turned on. One time, on an over sized pumpkin, we found a metallic gold ladybug. So here is this spot, one of millions, alive. I’ve watched the seasons from this yard, eaten from its soil and watched the most unbelievable people grow bigger. And smarter and more independent. We walk around barefoot now in the cool grass. And wait for the next mysterious curiosity to reveal itself.
They had so fervently dispensed of
the tide of modernity at the expense
of the common man
and then the oracle was placed in hand
for a few dollars
and they fell madly in love with machine
breathed deeply of its vapors
outsourced affections
for the illuminated life
this is all we need came the mantra
all we ever need to know
is here
in this screen
It’s not enough. Nor has it ever been enough.
It’s a velvety floral richness
steaming from the pot of petals
I read on country lawyers
I want to become one
I pray that the Canadian tar fields
and the continued Japanese nuclear meltdown
and the plastic gases…and…and
The children write revolutionary poetry
the kind that puts hair on the chest and tears in the eyes
the kind a country lawyer might need
while gathering roses from the fields
to make luscious syrup
Who owns the world?
I was consuming ideas, eating them out of books and thin air
After dissatisfaction with the childhood answers
the vapid pat answers that weren’t dredged from the speaker
but a lighter dismissal of the nature of curiosity
there was something in everything I found
even if it was a piece and not a totality
I couldn’t get enough
and then I read Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead
Her observations were one thing
the conclusions another
and everything in me revolted against these ideas
And it’s not only the Objectivists that I object to
It’s the arrogance of consumption without end
the entitlement to destroy Nature because of a desire
to bring about The End Times
that God is sitting up there mandating self serving
destruction for wealth and “superiority”
That these actions account for some kind of redemption
I am mad at “The Lorax”, a story packaged and marketed
the irony is ridiculous
and the old Oncler is not the ultimate villain, we are
We the buyers of thneeds
because without the mob of capitalist needfulness
without our full attachment to individualism
without those brand loyalties and penny pinching conveniences
the old Oncler has no power
Yours is the heart of a quince
Richer and wilder with the baking
of time with water and sugar
Rarely are ones like you planted anymore
deep in the land of simmering
Where grandmothers lived
tending stoves black as coal
and kitchens grew into perfumed
aromatic heart chambers
