DE RERUM HOMO SAPIENS SAPIENS


If we were not fundamentally rootless,
We’d still be bottom-dwelling
Filter feeders.

Our ancestors were trekkers who had sense
To live by the Season, wandering
Over sacred land.

All humans derive from that small groups of humans
Who chose to pack up and go north
With the great beasts.

The large mammals followed the grass which
Followed the rain, which
Followed the ice.

You who live your lives in cozy boxes
Might look out the window sometime
And see the herds.

Or might observe the migration of spirits
Hauling their tents on sleds
Pulled by the dog people.

For now it’s enough just to know the truth, that
The conditions in which we live today are not
Those in and for which the species was fashioned.

SET UP



We did not make ourselves,
And the code of life suggests
Some tinkering with nature.
Any thought of God is fantasy.
Yet perplexed at the unity,
I tread carefully in matters
Relating to intelligence.
For the issue could be personal:
One could be called to upgrade
Nature, reboot and reprogram
The whirring aged machine.
Stop and start, slow it down,
Inside a hundred wheels turn.
Be aware of what is hidden:
The feelings and sensations,
The movements and the thoughts.
Then might one understand
The odd set up, the mind-body
Contrivance, and be free.







When Gray Lock Comes


Just as Gray Lock with six braves
Perturbed all New England, so does
Essence come down from the mountain,
Appearing at the forest’s fringe, at
The edge of that clearing called known
Experience. Face painted for war,
With scalps hanging from His belt,
The essence terrorizes the people,
Driving settlers into stockades.
There, personae peer out of loopholes.
There, the psyche, boxed and cushioned,
Succumbs to vain fears and imaginings,
Dies in the crush of the force of habit.
At the door it’s better to greet the Unknown
Than to lie forever as a white tombstone.


INVITATION TO A CHINESE POET

Take me to the summit of Cold Mountain
And I’ll wade with you across Green River.

You be that red-necked crane winging by
And I’ll be this pileated woodpecker.

Even as you sit by the fire of my teepee
I check the horses outside your yurt.

Our ancestors gave so much out on the frontier
Better not provoke them with rash inaction.

Come in. We’ll taste tea first, and then wine.
Feel free to break out your own stash.

For you, life has become one long ,arch.
For me, a matter of sitting still.

What discipline! And for that we relax.
So let us drink and dream and mix our blood.

To hell with China and America!
Where did Lao Tzu say he was going?

All night we sit telling stories
About incidents along the frontier.

Then, when the moon illumes the snow-bent spruce,
We go out and watch some shooting stars.




TRAFFIC JAM


The herd moved nose-to-tail, stop, move, stop.
The beasts were angry, groaning under load.
The big trucks belched acrid smoke.
Horns were honking – rude plaintiffs.
Engines overheat and the people too.
What is it this time? Another accident?
Or just more work widening the road?
The line of stopped vehicles stretched
From both ends of the horizon.
The sun heated up the plush car interiors.
Few realized the AC would just heat up
Their engine. But don’t open a window -
The noise and smoke gets on his nerves.
People were beginning to act strangely.
Some drove their cars along the shoulder,
Inciting anger. Others crossed the median.
Most of those citizens who sat and waited,
Suffered the overheating of the engines.
The motors stalled and wouldn’t start.
He could hear the batteries running down
Like wailing beasts in the throes of death.
He wants out, out of the chrome tomb.
And there he is, with some others,
Darting amongst the beasts like hunters.




Saqi the Cupbearer


Only in the tavern at the crossroad
Do I get to see you face to face.

You’re the one who serves the wine,
Who waits for me to place my order.

The same light that sparkles in the wine
Flashes in your eyes like lightning.

No wonder you guard the inner court.
All the revelry is just a front.

The seer and seen are one, they say.
But what if sight were turned in on itself?

There are large mirrors on the walls.
Don’t get lost in the endless reflections.

Just when I’m ready to leave, you bring
Another chalice of chilled ruby-red wine.

I can’t keep coming here every night.
But I can’t live in darkness either.



WEIR RIDDLE

What am I that all of me disappears
Each day when the Moon Magnetic clears
The bay in a rush of surging waters?

Then I am but a momentary obstacle
To weighty phantoms, a scary spectacle
I cannot see or hear but only feel.

I know not who eats whom, or how they breed:
Whether they flow with the tide or act on need,
Only that I’d lose my catch if I impede

Their steady progress. Call me stick in the mud. Skim
My rim. Swim around or through my mesh, if so slim.
But all will fatten over summer’s interim.

O ye creatures of the depths, all who dream
Of fresher waters, fight your way upstream.
I’ll stay here and I am not what I seem.

O ye schools of chosen fishes, why prawn
The depths when clear mountain pools bid thee spawn
Sockeye’d progeny? Like a breath indrawn

And held for a summer, or a question posed,
I, too, am a circle not quite closed.
I mark the tide as I become exposed.

But still they do not see me. Nor do I lure or trick
Them. By law, a few enter, a random pick.
They thrash their scales against my rick

In desperation. But my door is always open.
Yet to get out they must go the way they came in,
And this confuses them. So they just turn a fin

And just mill about, which is opportune
When out like an egret in a choice lagoon
Steps the mantic girl child with a long harpoon.