Hold Fire

Someone casually referred
To some new technology
Not even accomplished yet,

Still just a dream and a threat,
In terms of profundity—
It’ll be bigger than fire.

Oho. No it won’t. For one,
It comes much later than fire,
If it makes it here at all,

And for another, control
Of fire was the grandmother,
The last common grandmother

Of the rest. If this new tech
Burns you, it’s fire, you bet.

The Bird That Didn’t Sing

Maybe the changes most
Intriguing are changes

In contexts of sameness—
Of near sameness—changes

Not only cyclical,
But minimal, even

Confined in mid-cycle,
Like the landscape that looks

The same all afternoon,
Trivial cloud movements,

Maybe no clouds at all,
No dramatic shadows

Until the very end
Of the day, when it’s time

For you to leave knowing
You might never witness

Such subtle skirt-settling
Of feathers on branches

In this or any scene
Like this landscape again.

Get

Wild turkeys warble
Somewhere out of sight.
A scrub jay squawks back,
Or maybe just cries.

What’s matter-of-fact
For various lives
Might seem quaint to you,
Exotic, now, right?

Well, there’s a contrail,
Followed by a roar.
The facts of turkeys,
Jays—now some titmice—

Don’t make an idyll.
Hawk screams, coyotes—
Still strictly business,
Nothing pastoral.

A breeze wavers through.
Jays and coyotes
Hush up and listen,
But not the ravens.

Whatever lives want,
Whyever they cry,
They’ll take what they get,
Or at least they’ll try.

Cryptomnemology

It might be even more frightening,
If dementia could run in reverse,
If every day you remembered

A little more than the day before,
Old details you’d long since forgotten,
Some charming, many embarrassing.

Isn’t this what happens to someone
Once they’re renowned or notorious
Or become minor celebrities?

Past actions rise up from shallow graves,
Indiscretions and mere oddities,
Most dangerously old opinions,

Gibbering j’accuse, the lot of them.
Let memories lie. Don’t bother them.

The Death of Local News

Having read about what happened,
Somewhere, somewhere, and somewhere else,

Translated from accounts of those
Who experienced things themselves,

You have your reactions. You form
Your opinions, even in bed,

Even as a half-invalid
To whom none of those things happened,

And then you eagerly read more,
Now hoping for certain results.

Sometimes, it seems like you’re getting
The results you were hoping for,

And the world seems more promising,
Even if your world’s not improved.

Other times, it seems like nothing
Is going as you would have hoped,

And the world seems more menacing,
Even if your world is no worse.

It goes up and down, back and forth,
While in your world you get notice

Some powerful force is coming
For you, for your income or health,

Your family, your life itself.
This you ignore. What can you do?

You go back to reading reports
Of results from worlds beyond you.