Submitted for Your Consideration

Some symbols can be read
That posit all symbols
Are forms of submission—

That is, equivalent
To using one’s posture
To end confrontation.

All symbolic language,
Then, is being polite,
Giving way, not fighting.

Flyting and the dozens
Do seem more like displays
Than actual brawling,

But neither incitement
Nor bearing witness
Ease negotiation—

That would make poems combat
Continued by other
Means. We’re not diplomats.

Wind in Your Hair

You’re not completely confused.
You’ve gained some understanding
Of yourselves and what you need

To tolerate awareness.
Your breathing exercises,
Social participations,

Reminders that this moment
Is the moment that you have.
Routine prayer and worship pace

The racing pulse, the terrors
Of death and dismemberment
That can swallow awareness

Even when all’s going well
For the beast in the moment.
Trapped in language and culture,

You have still benefited
A little from accruals
Of what passes for wisdom.

Your little skulls, the chassis
For symbolism’s engines,
Get dragged all over the world

At speeds they aren’t fit to take,
With horrible accidents
Occurring on many curves,

But you can ease through some turns,
Coast to pauses, if not stops.
You may learn to handle this

Machinery made from you,
And if not you, your offspring.
When it’s rolling, love the view.

Leopards of Mumbai and Lions of Los Angeles

In their ignorance
They called it culture.
It was enslavement.

But they couldn’t stop.
They used it against
The rest of the world.

They used it mostly
Against each other,
And yet, even then,

Never mind the small
Lives that always thrived
Under and with them—

The rats and rabbits,
Sparrows and pigeons,
The glorious germs,

Free parasites, and
Parasites of germs--
In mega-cities

Of multimillions,
Some top predators
From the old nature,

Old dispensation,
Slipped back in again—
Coy-wolves in New York,

Leopards in Mumbai,
Cougars in L.A.
Life is a system

Invented itself
From the nonliving
To keep things living.

More life’s just more life,
Mixing extinctions.
It stops at nothing.

Culture’s its new thing,
New to the system,
New as oxygen

Was at one point, new
As tetrapods were,
New as jaws and wings.

Once it masters you,
Your offspring evolve
To survive and thrive

Within it, but not
To escape from it.
Life prowls within it.

Light Detection and Ranging

There’s not much archaeology
In these valleys of silver lakes—
A collection of ancient pits,
Some ochre rock art on the cliffs.

But that’s still a few thousand years,
At least two hundred generations
Of lived human habitation,
Whole humans in each one of them,

Never mind there were few of them,
Sparse, dedicated foragers,
Seasonal shelters dug in dirt,
Summers rotating through the lakes.

Project yourself back a minute.
Imagine a life at random,
One whole existence, end to end,
In those given circumstances,

Whenever that human landed,
Voices, stories, hunger, teamwork,
Days you felt were pretty worthless,
Days you felt things were wonderful,

Whatever the rules, whatever
The gossip, whatever crises,
Playful or violent disputes.
You did what you did, then you went.

It Wouldn’t Take Much

If only words worked on flesh
As well as on all the rest
Of the worlds we orchestrate,

We would be able to calm
You by stating what you need
To hear, to feel, and to know,

That you can be contented,
That every calm moment’s yours,
That the morning is enough,

Being morning and certain
And then evening and certain,
Being living knowing this.

Dying for the Rest of Your Life

You’ll always be, although
You won’t always feel it.
The satisfaction in

Being able to say
You did this or that well,
Wholly arbitrary,

Will keep you occupied
And distracted, chasing
Your idea of the right

Way to live. All the while,
Past a certain turning,
Your body, your empire

Of tiny, compounded,
Mostly unaware lives,
Your vortex in the waves,

Will be slowly dying,
Sometimes pleasantly,
Sometimes not, right or not.

More Than You’ll Ever Know

It only kills you, sometimes,
How innocent everything
That isn’t you is—the sky,

The cliffs—since you’re all guilty
Of ladling guilt on the skulls
Of yourselves and your others

Among yourselves. Afternoons
When the sun shines so brightly
It reminds you there are worlds

Beyond all you and your wars,
Worlds even beyond all life,
Worlds that have never known life,

You smack your own foreheads, shocked
At so much innocence there.