It’s Just Too Easy to Do

We know this much—whatever morals
Are, it’s demonstrably possible
To juxtapose multiple people

Who are fiercely moral who oppose
At least some of each other’s morals
As fiercely, as opposed to their own.

You can get them in a room. You can
Get them in a stadium, a war,
In ragged lines of flags and bullhorns,

In your church, in a quiet back room.
Nothing’s easier than to suppose
Your moral opponent’s immoral,

And sometimes, maybe, that’s really true.
Still, someone moral opposes you.

Tunneling Underground Weather Channels

Disaster only makes
The news more compelling—
So long as disaster

Doesn’t overtake news
Systems for selling news,
It makes news more money.

Astronomers remove
Certain wavelengths, foreground
Stars, and interference

From deep space images
To show what’s going on
Behind them. Conversely,

Fossils sometimes endure
As casings and outlines
Of what they once concealed.

Which will it be for you?
If the future removes
Humans from human tools,

Could a stranger deduce
Humans from patterns left
In, for instance, news?

When you’re gone, will we be
Your best trace-fossil shells?
Or do you need to be

Removed, so it’s clearer
How you must have been spawned
By your technologies?

Darlings, are we or you
Your core disaster or
Your money-making news?

Betrayed

So far, the days don’t really feel

Shorter, but they will. If you live

Until the winter, you’ll feel them

Get quite short, then again longer,

But not if you switch latitudes,

Hemispheres, sail the equator.

The bombing continues. Burning

Wildfires throw ash near the places

You’ve already lived for some years.

Maybe here. Maybe you won’t be

Here. Your next shift in perspective

Won’t be quite so academic.

There was a guy down at the shore,

Potbellied, bald, in a ball-cap,

Sunglasses, and Hawaiian shirt,

Who accosted you, earnestly,

To ask how you are, where you’ve been,

And then to start rambling to you

About war and politicians.

He asked you whether you believed,

As scientist, in certain things.

You asked, Do I believe in dogs?

He barked a laugh but didn’t ask

Just what in hell you meant by that.

You wanted to say, what you don’t

Describe as question of belief

Is your tell, betrays perspective.

Jetty

If you were a god
Or godlike critic,
A literary

Godlet, you could list
All the things you like
About this jetty,

This white-washed cement
Rectangle, wildflowers
Growing over it,

Small, concrete boat dock,
Concrete as a poem
About a motel

Beside an airport
By Jane Kenyon—each
Physical airplane

Deftly transfigured
By comparison
To more physical

Things and beings—whales,
Foxes, basketball
Players, women’s skirts—

The whole tied up tight
With a wry comedown
About great shadows

In a parking lot.
This jetty’s crumbling
Concrete, not a lot,

Jutting its shadow
Into the waves while
Lake water’s rising.

All Waves Make Reflections

Humans studying humans
Are oddly fascinating
To humans studying them.

Who makes a social science
Of the social scientists—
Psychology’s history,

Sociology’s habits,
Big data on big data?
Recently, pattern seekers

Have been reading the tea leaves
For prospects of civil war
Among the pattern seekers.

The lake is turning over,
Water turning on water
While water evaporates.

Everyone’s Talking

Culture is subtle
Except in people,
Except in recent

Unsubtle people.
It was all singing
And small-tool making

For chimpanzees, crows,
Whales, dolphins, parrots.
Bipeds were quiet,

Little things walking
Along in small groups,
Mostly quieter

Than the surrounding
Flocks of birds, changing
The landscape far less

Than elephants, ants,
Or herds of hooved beasts.
What happened to us?

Acceleration
Has been merciless
Within our swelling

Civilizations,
Despite collapses.
The people haven’t

Changed that much, not yet,
But the things they do,
Can do, to the world,

To other species,
To the stones and seas,
And to each other,

With names, in our names,
Are now, as people
Often say, monstrous.

We are that monster.
We can’t stop ourselves.
We can’t help ourselves.

The Mask’s Just Entertainment

At night, Breton’s brave notion
That dreams and reality
Could be treated as combined

Feels itself more porously
Real, as well as ludicrous.
It’s a pity the surreal

Has come to be a byword
For anything bizarrely
Unreal feeling that is real.

The idea of a higher
Union of realities,
Reality absolute,

Got lost in the surrealists’
Own tricks of juxtaposition.
They didn’t make dreams feel real

Only the world invaded
By the dreams of the surreal.
Imagine reality,

In the dark, as the final
Girl of your horror movie,
The victim in the mayhem

Refusing to be victim,
Escaping whichever death
Death’s surreal mask has offered.