Transmission

Who did you choose to die this afternoon?
The spider feels the web with its foreleg
And waits for the vibration as the moon
Refracts the silk to silver. None will beg.

The poison goes from fly to spider, bird
To snake to fox to cougar lying dead
Among the granite snowfields--nothing heard
Their deaths they suffered, all because they fed.

The empty roads, the empty stores, the poor
Who die in illness and abuse, who die
Of hunger and disease--behind your door
You're safe, you're always safe. Enjoy your lie.

Believe the beautiful--it's always true--
The test of virtue, showing what you're due.

Dawn

You look upon it and you stare
As nervous as a hunted hare
And, looking longingly, aware
That you have done
All that you could, and yet you swear
You need a gun.

If only you had done your best,
Enjoyed the sunrise's warm breast
Then you would not feel so oppressed
By riches earned
By others, making you a pest
With nothing learned.

You look upon it and you find
That all your life will soon unwind
Because you thought you should not bind
Yourself to one
That wound into the mind,
The rising sun.

You have not done the best you could
And now you won't do what you should
Despite the fact it only would
Bring happiness
And beauty, justice, all that's good--
You wanted less.

You look upon it and the glow
Of wisdom you will never know
Is vanishing in its clear glow,
Its fortitude
Defying everything you show
In attitude.

Throes

In rainbow pools the body will dissolve
To nutrients for ancient organisms

The geysers burst from fissures cycling water
That rains down cool but came up scalding hot

The earth is swelling, cooking trees beneath
And nothing rises higher than the grasses

The heat and ash will rise and bury life
In gray cocoons the future will unearth

The heat of summer brings the fever pitch--
Cicadas singing, buzzing in our ears

The singing, singing, voices rising, rising
And everything we sing is deafening

The earth is shifting--boulders break to rocks
To sand containing cosmoses alone

The grunions surge onto the shore and writhe
Into the sand, moon shining off their scales

A surge of crowds, of herds, of prides destroy
To resurrect, to sacrifice, renew

A single man, a paintbrush and a canvas
A single woman, pen to paper, sings

A single stone rotating silently
Toward the earth and heating up the sky

The comet once foretold disaster--star
That comes negating all we think we know

The river swirling gently on our feet
Will rush destroying our homes behind us

A woman, pregnant, giving birth--that's you,
That's me--we're begging to be born, reborn

Be Like Water

A dew is resting, glistening on the grass
It is soft, it gives way to your touch
The splash of water from a struggling bass
Is the water held back by the Dutch

In torrents water rolls the house-sized boulders
In the rapids the swiftness can raze
High walls of hardest stone that would not smolder
If a fire were to rush in a blaze

The way is water--that's the way for you
To discover the flows of your life
You have to learn to flow in all you do
To be hard, to be soft, love and strife