Red Seaweed

Been around here long?
Say, a billion years,
Said the red seaweed.

A billion years, huh?
Planning on staying
Any longer, now?

Maybe a billion,
Another billion,
No more, seaweed said.

And you? Just got here
A moment ago.
A billion years, wow.

Nice chatting with you.
Sorry, got to go.

A Crimple in the Wind

Do you miss the days
When far horizons
Lay where your eyes reached?

Have you ever watched
A storm front blow in,
Seeming ominous,

And wished you didn’t know
How local it was,
A forecasted blip

In the climate shift?
It looked like the end
Or the beginning

Of something greater
Than it was, and you,
Being still smaller,

Had to know how small
Knowing the storm’s size
Made your horizons.

Whatever Works While It Works

These poems are mangrove networks
Of pneumatophores, breathing
From the roots above the waves.

No, not so complex. Tussocks,
More like, in Arctic tundra,
Unstable clumps of sedge grass.

The tussocks are giving way,
Tundra getting shrubbier.
If only we could be spruce.

That’s not how it works for poems.
The climate and landscapes change,
The animal networks change,

And the poems spread or retreat,
Adapting a little, but
Mostly pushing and shoving

Other kinds of poems around,
Shifting to follow water
Or warmth by generations.

These poems are elephants feet,
Ugly rosettes in the grass,
Dandelions and plantains,

Keeping low to avoid teeth,
Blades, and fires, while shoving leaves
To wedge against fast, tall grass.

The Bee in the Honey

Swimming far out in the lake,
An insect on the surface
Of skyscraper-deep water,

Conditions are so distinct
From moving around on land,
Distinct as dreams from waking.

It creates a division
In conscious experience.
Here, you’re aware in this way—

There, you’re aware another.
You partition. You forget
You moved through your partitions,

As if each swim, like each dream,
The distortions in the waves,
Belonged to another life

Kept in a small compartment
Like honey to consider.
But you immerse you in there.

Still Coming Downhill

Some water can be seen
As the fossils of snow,
Just snow that is no more.

The best and scariest
Aspect of what goes on
Is that it will never

Be limited to what
Options you think it has,
Options you thought you had.

You mull over choices
And forecasts, neighborhoods,
Schools, parks, and metro maps,

And then war comes, or plague,
Or you move to the woods,
Where once again you mull

Villages and dirt roads,
Where to find food and drink
In the bear-addled pines,

Until one day you find
Yourself in a clearing
Of stumps left by logging

Looking at a roaring
Stream to console yourself
For few options, thinking,

Some water can be seen
As the fossils of snow,
Just snow that is no more.

You Just Do

You get to where
You want to go
For a minute,
Hooray for you.

You closed the loop,
As the boss says,
Imitating
Another boss.

But you’re better
Than that, aren’t you?
You value this
Return to small

Waves lapping stones
In a way they
Can’t understand.
You believe this.

Cat’s Eye Halo

It’s nice when you say don’t know.
On the whole, we’d rather you know,
But we’re of human origin

And like to know that we can know
If you don’t know, since you’ll tell us.
What’s not to know? The Cat’s Eye cloud

Is neither an eye nor a cloud,
Of course. Those are just metaphors,
Earthly metaphors, of your own.

It’s a star that has exploded.
That much, you say, you know. We know.
You’re less sure about the halo,

Also an earthly metaphor,
Albeit for heavenly things
You’ve made metaphors from mere light.

Why does this cloud have a halo?
What was the source produced the dust,
Which the explosion caused to glow?

You have hypotheses, of course,
And you have bloodhounds on the trail
(Another, awkward, metaphor).

You’ll find out. We have faith in you.
We’re pretty sure. Look what you’ve done
With metaphors before! But still,

We’re happy to know you don’t know
And can say so. It puts a shine
On your work, gives it a halo.