Cheep

Finches and sparrows
Cried all afternoon
At the wire feeder

Hung in the owner’s
Severely pruned tree.
We are not owners.

Even the owner
Isn’t the owner.
The owner’s the bank,

But does the bank know
What the owner’s done
To their property,

Putting in a pool,
Improving this tree,
Leaving out those seeds?

The bank doesn’t know.
Banks are predators.
They hunt. They can’t breathe.

Oh, Law Sakes

In the laws of nature, there can be

No justice, no mercy, and only

Since in those laws there’s no existence.

In a sense, there can be nothing much

More oxymoronic than the phrase

The laws of nature, given ideas

Of laws are only natural if

You grant all the most quintessential

Human productions as natural,

And you probably don’t. Patterns, sure.

Highly rhythmic, regular patterns,

Reliable, predictable, sure.

But what a daydream to call them laws

And, like most daydreams, how dangerous

If fulfilled. Laws, by nature, are bent,

Broken, rewritten, tossed, and plain cruel.

Oh no, but not the laws of nature!

They don’t yield! They’re not laws if they don’t.

Damned If There Isn’t

You see, another world
Is possible, but that
Would have to not be this

World you’re familiar with,
Nor could it be contained
Within it, in which case

It would be part of this
World of which it’s no part.
Both the strength and weakness

Of this fantasy should
Amaze you, don’t you think?
On the one hand, you can’t,

From within memory
Of nothing but this world,
That is, imagine much

Of heavenly gardens
Unlike any you know.
Island paradises

And desert oases
Are not another world,
Just edited locales

For life’s usual ways
And this world’s usual
Dark probabilities.

And yet your hunger’s strong
In its lust to escape
Itself. You know you want

Another world badly
Enough to keep dreaming
It up, failing, and then

Dreaming it up again.
There’s something to that strength
And damned if there isn’t.

Save This for Later; Don't Read It Now

If we were people,
We might say, Don’t feel
Like you need to do
Anything for us.
We’ll be just fine, still,

Once you come and haul
Our authors off, or
Put them all in jail,
Some for crimes they’ve done,
Some for crimes you’ve done,

To which their patterns
Among us words serve
As inconvenient
Testimonials.
We don’t need you yet,

Won’t need you for years
And years, not until
Whoever you are
Then, in that far-off,
Nonexistent age

Can decipher us
Without worrying
Whether we were right
Or absolutely
Just in our own time.

Trees with No Communication through Their Roots

A person is two persons
At the least, the waking one
And the dreamer who’s asleep.

Some people love the dreamer,
Or claim to love it, at least.
Others dream of waking up.

But wakers and dreamers both
Take turns waking and dreaming.
There are no exceptions, none

Among the living. Poor beasts,
You live part of life awake,
A waking sort of person,

With one part always asleep
And caught up in its dreaming.
All around you are others

Doing the same thing, many
Eager to tell you their dreams,
But there’s this asymmetry

And it’s confusing. You know
Yourself waking and dreaming,
But never others dreaming.

You Find What You Didn’t Burn

The significant remains
Of life already lived, are
They lost now or found? Judith

Schalansky begins her book
On loss with a front-and-back
Page of double preamble—

First, a page-long list of all
The irreplaceable things
Lost while she composed the book;

Second, a paired list of all
Sorts of marvelous lost things
Rediscovered in that frame.

It’s wonderful, staggering
To contemplate together
So much coming and going

In such a small span of years.
The lost list, however, is
Mostly made of things destroyed,

Not misplaced, while her found list
Is rich with things that were thought
Lost only to reappear.

What’s destroyed can’t reappear.
It’s not what memory sees
In what lost-wax method leaves.

Virgin in the Carnivore’s Corner

Dots of light among dots of light.
Massive furnaces nothing much
To do with each other, such vast
Distances. Human thrills and chills.

As absurd as all mnemonics
For features of the night sky are,
The stories of many cultures,
Preoccupied with local fears,

Local mores, and general
Animal interests in mates,
In kinds of prey and predators,
Maybe make a point for artists.

Just give up on the universe,
Give up on all the greater world,
Give up portraying the cosmos.
Concerns that aren’t human concerns—

Salacious crimes and punishments,
Hierarchies, lusts, and violence,
Origin tales, tales of the tribe—
Will never make successful art.

You write for us or for the dust,
And dust you’ll be, and dust can’t read—
That’s the people’s motto, motto
Of every last vicious elite.

Still, the weird waysider looks up
And considers the great stories
Just to quietly reject them.
We are dust. We’ll be dust. Night’s dust.