The Heart of Humanity
Tea leaves unfold in hot water. Picture an ordered universe of tea
leaves from Mount Kanchenjunga above Darjeeling. Afternoon
turns cold when the fires blow out, and I sense all is not human.
Lips curled back don’t necessarily mean happiness for those
with knowledge of faces. Gilded fairytale platters of heads
grinning More, and in a hurry! Few know what they have
from what’s missing.
No problem with life until desire roots in, and afterwards
to sit still. and alone. but not lonely.
Is it the right warm hand in yours regardless of longevity swelling.
Unborn babies have no birthdays. No parties with numbers.
They sense the translucent flutter of gills forming.
Have they more then than later? Birth is the crossroads
to the tactile. A giving away. Unimagined
time’s clearly free as water once was. Moments of clarity.
The longshot at becoming fully human. Remarkable whimsy.
Might adding the letter e to the sixth word in the line above resonate
enough to crack open the heart of humanity? Stretch it. Make it give.
An e on the tail-end of how we two-leggeds like to think of ourselves. Always.
Work you’ll not forget isn’t easy. Allow this to shake you. Keep vibrating.
Muscle memory of the missing.
Why are the unwaveringly humane harder to find
than those in stasis on a boulder
with eyes unblinking?
* * * * *
The Perils of Not Dreaming
Inconsequential, you think, a child with a dream
of two owls? Pretend there’s a great deal of meaning
for a bright handful of beings.
This could be a level of clarity
worth considering — a makeshift fog dreams are swirled in.
Puzzles to carry back at dawn.
Moonlit phantoms
do not arrive with orders to vanish at sunrise. They hang
after-hours. Silver bait in liquid starlit.
Oh, my soul —
the child sings for the sound of it.
Relaxed between beaks she
is flying! Silken hammock she nests in.
Think about it — could new experience be more than the brain’s
rote repeating by the minute? The decades which is the true threat
of consensus.
Dreamily removed are you from the maybe-not-so state of morning?
It takes a sudden gust of courage to be at one with another. Remember
your most current disguise? Night’s a final wad of wonder
quivering under our animal skin.