Evening at Home

Father and child discuss
The problems of human
Groupishness and agree

The only hope would be
To soften boundaries,
Bring down the temperature.

It’s not in their natures,
It would seem, to dream cures
Or crave Apocalypse.

Maybe it could be less
Absurdly violent,
If terminology

And identities could
Be a bit more porous.
It’s all amiable

Between the two of them.
What happens when they meet
Someone who disagrees?

House to House

Things are things
That happpened:
No one will.

No one thing
Will ever
Yet happen,

Not even
That one—just
Things that did.

God’s Prosthetic Hand

They’re still going
To God’s Right Hand,
Those dying now

Who have refused
To abdicate
Belief—at least

Who won’t concede
Their doubt—the hand
May not remain,

But there’s something
They’ve carved they hope
Can still catch them.

Quit

What do you want
From similar
Experience,

From the common
Trajectory
Biology

And history
Give to human
Lives they spit out

Like pumpkin seeds
Into the air
For gravity

To arc the same?
Poets will write
About old age

Like anyone
Talks about it,
Noting the same

Disappointments
And surprises,
The same bromides

About being
Sad or grateful,
Until they quit.

The Bumblebee Leaves

Free thinking, by nature,
Is trial and error.
The bee caught in the house,

Unlike a panicked bird,
Flies like a free thinker
And will find its way out,

If one window’s open.
Terror and hardwiring
Kill trial and error,

Kill rumination, kill
Tinkering, kill any
Semblance of free thinking—

The fly that pounds the pane,
The bird in the ceiling.
Bats seem to have the knack,

Despite starting out scared.
Give a trapped bat a door
Anywhere in the house,

And so long as the bat
Hasn’t already grown
Enamored of shadows

In a closet in back,
It will find its way out.
There’s nothing elegant,

Nothing obviously
Goal-directed, bumbling
About at medium

Velocity. And who
Would say a bee or bat
Is necessarily

Smarter or a better
Strategist than a bird?
Nonetheless, if you’re prone

To wander and get trapped,
Some calm rumination,
Some tinkering, helps that.