it’s all very eerie
this world tied together
by time zones and mapping grids
lashed by the electric hiss and the
static crackle of telephone wires and
underseas cables, tethered by the
ethered bend of radio and microwaves
when all i want is something ethereal
the whispering sound of leaves as
the eastern wind calls forth the rain
but alas, perspective birthed the erecteral
arts, geometric space, a new scaffolding
of segmenting boundary, and the
sensual tumbled like Whitmanʻs redwoods
crashing into national measurements
and a proclaimed detachment, a trumpeted
objectivity, an engineered consciousness
for our circumscribed democracies
and the earth crawled from beneath
the sliding scree, the scattered debris,
found itself anew as raw material
found itself anew as landscape
found itself anew as segmented ʻitʻ
and found itself enbureaued in scentless
energy budgets, entangled in colorless
concepts of photo-synthetic efficiency,
etcetera, etcetera, the numbers non-
living and non-continuous but run ʻvalue-
freeʻ by educated specialists, hip to the
selfish gene theory and the monetization
of their own worth, but alienated
from the rain-calling wind, alienated from
the yipping forests of foxy desire, alienated
from the splashing currents of salmon
longing, leaving our human world of com-
bustable complexities leafless, succumbing
to the crow-caw of ever-diminishing returns,
where is the sense in this?
i sit on a lanai beneath the mellow soft-
shoe sounds of the rain pondering this
written word, should it be sung or litigated?
Does the erotic sensual world now bow
to our patterns of abstractions? i bow
to James Stephens who once did chant
the first and last duty of humankind:
to dance.
Teaser photo credit; Young but already tall redwood trees (Sequoia sempervirens) in Oakland, California. By Victorgrigas – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16577471
