The Circle Charmer

If you ask a fair number
Of evolutionary
Scientists, they will tell you

That trust between signalers
And receivers generates
The shared domain of meaning.

Communal trust makes meaning?
Meaning what? There seems to be
Communal trust in species

Other than bipedal apes.
Communal trust generates
Serenity in the group.

Signalers and receivers
Need some shared trust to transmit
Valuable information,

But is that truly meaning?
No, meaning is much weirder.
Nothing means what meaning means.

Drinking Graveyard Water

The Brontës did. We all do.
It’s not really why they died.
(Hint: why do graveyards exist?)

And yet, in a way it’s why
We all die the way we die.
(Why do humans make graveyards?)

Each syllable in this line,
Each shape, even translated
To other tongues, scripts, or codes,

Trickles through graveyard water,
All the other, long-lost signs
You thought were buried under

Brought back up by raw weather.
(Why do graves’ inscriptions blur?)

Mineral Red

The beginning of symbols

From that primate attention

To red flushes and blushes

And blood—the punctuation

Of apes’ social lives became

Early ornamentation,

The preferential digging

Of the reddest ochre clay

For your ancestors to paint

On bodies, tools, and weapons.

Did someone say something first,

Sing, dance, gesture signs in air?

Maybe. The exact sequence

Of which ritual came first

Will be hard to reconstruct.

But somewhere in there, the game

Began. Temples, libraries,

Movies, porn, wars, World Cups.

Ache

Ghosts will sit and reminisce
About their bodies for days—
Once in a while, they’ll recall

A missing loved one, mistakes
They made, the rest of the world,
Then back to reminiscing

About their own gone bodies
And all the wrongs done to them.
Ghosts love their bodies dearly,

Although their bodies aren’t theirs
Anymore and, frankly, were
Never theirs in the first place.