Glaring Back at the World

Being so tuned to faces,
Tones of voice, body language,
But above all to the least

Indication of intent
In fellow human beings,
Makes it hard not to believe

There’s malice in gravity,
Or kindness in a soft breeze.
And why wouldn’t you think so?

After thousands of cycles
Of perishing or thriving
Thanks to how well ancestors

Could read each other, hopeless
Without each other’s support,
The human environment

Being the environment
Of humans, what did nature
Expect, except a being

Tending to read everything
As emotional affect,
As deliberate intent?

If mind-reading’s the one skill
The beast’s been selected for,
Every problem is a mind.

Odds Are a Salvo

Fired in jest—odd or
Ordinary, what
Are the odds we’re both?

That life really is
Rare in this cosmos
But ordinary

Enough that pockets
Of life are scattered
Around like jackpots

Litter lotteries—
Yes, unusual,
Whenever one’s won,

Unfathomable
In your neighborhood,
Much less for yourself,

And yet it happens,
Quite regularly.
Could life be like that?

Seems more likely than
Earth being unique,
Truly a one-off

Among the trillions
Of possible spots,
Just one small salvo

Of gnawing hungers
In all the burning
Universe. And yet,

No way of knowing,
Yet. Those galaxies
Look more like mere fires

Than like life’s monsters
That keep swimming up
From our ocean depths.

Silkworms and Honey Bees

The most abundantly
Cultivated species
Of domesticated

Creatures on the planet—
Oh how humans love them
Some honey and silk.

This is not one beast,
This ape taking over
The planet. It’s legion,

Constellation, at least,
A configuration
Of desire plus language

Orchestrating species
Together, in a way
It’s possible to read.

Empty Chambers

Your heart has had a quiet night,
Your genuine heart, the muscle,
That’s why you’re here, absorbing us.
You can breathe. Your chest doesn’t hurt.

Does it seem unfair, or unkind,
Maybe, that awareness depends
On a bloody pump, for one thing,
Among a lot of bloody things?

Well, even the self has to eat
Material supplies to stay
Here, absorbing thoughts quietly,
But that would be the better way,

Wouldn’t it? To not have to eat,
To consume nothing to be here?

A Run of Unusually Regular Days

Tricks for every wrinkle thrown
Your way, but you don’t need them,
Haven’t needed them for days.

The world’s on one of its runs
Of regular deception,
Regularity being

Itself the trick in this case.
You’ve been falling for a while
Asleep the same hour, awake

The same hour the next morning,
The same habits, the same food,
The same seasonal changes,

Gradual, almost stately,
As you rotate through your chores,
Laundry on Tuesday, grading

Anthropology Wednesday,
Afternoon drives each Sunday.
Last Sunday you passed a stag

On your way back from your drive,
Sort of an apparition,
Just there, all of a sudden,

Tines almost touching your car.
Had he jumped, you would have braked
Too late. The regular lie.

Microglia take Guts

Zebra fish that lack
Gut microbiomes
Growing up end up

Socializing less
Than zebra fish with
Colonized colons,

And their neurons show
The consequences,
Which is evidence

For hypotheses
Microbiota
Are necessary

For developing
Brains, maybe even
In big-brained mammals,

More tests to follow.
Already some guess
This might be the link

Seen in Parkinson’s,
Autism Spectrum,
And ADHD

To harmed GI tracts.
Doesn’t it make you
Wonder a little

How far this could go?
What’s necessary
For ordinary

Brain development
Could also produce
Extraordinary

Developments, no?
Could social wizards
Have special colons,

Sage ecosystems
Favoring wisdom?
At our other end,

We’ve got to ask what
Gut microbiome
The hermit has got.

Seedless Grape

The idea has always been
In conflict with itself. What,
Asks the idea, is it worth

To be a kind of a thing
That’s only abstraction?
The idea has some idea

What this might mean. The idea
Has been terribly fecund.
There are so many ideas

Now, and although some are removed,
They aren’t alive. None of them
Actually die. The idea

Finds this very disturbing.
Why can’t it be an orange?
Vivre l’orange. Substitute.