a few from last fall

10,000 Feet

10,000 feet—an altitude
for the brave and silent.
But the marmots thrive,
just by being fat and furry and
living under rocks, and frisking
in the cool bright sunshine.
They do not hibernate but survive
by storing up grasses to eat in winter.
What a life. But they seem
happy, enjoy sunning themselves
on the ledges. Oh don’t give
me that bullshit about we
don’t know whether they can
feel emotions, “love
their children,” etc.
The marmot sitting in the
sun, enjoying its’ warmth, is
definitely happy. The way
Opa was when Daddy wheeled
him into the backyard of
Avalon House and he sat
in the sun and said
“Ahh” in German, and then
there was a fox, which was always
his favorite animal. And
Opa and the fox both
sat motionless in the
sunlit backyard and
looked at each other,
the one with sleek red
fur and the man with downy
white hair, his alter ego, both
silent and still, it didn’t
matter that Opa had to
be still because his legs
didn’t work anymore and
silent because the
words in his mind didn’t
match the ones that
came out of his mouth.


NO ARMS BUT WINGS

(NO LEGS AT ALL)

Native taxidermists of New Guinea prepared the birds for trading by cutting off their legs and drying them over a fire. Islamic traders brought the stuffed birds to Europe where people saw that they “lack feet and are therefore obliged to fly continuously and live in the highest sky,” and thus named them “bird of paradise.”

In animals, arms and legs are what
make things happen. Are what let us
walk, reach, hold on to the dusty earth
with our bare toes. Are what buoy
us up when we jump, for a fleeting time
suspend the duty of being attached
to a planet. Let us hibernate a whole
winter long among tree roots,
cradled in bare earth bones.

Medievals in their frail bodies
loved the bird that broke
the confines of their narrow,
gravity-bound life, soared above
the mucky courtyards and disease,
forever purer and happier.

But animals need arms, cannot
live long without reaching
toward another warm body.

The bird of paradise lives a life of
enforced freedom. His feathery cage
lets him draw near other birds but
never close enough.

I never thought I would find myself
arguing against wings. But if I measure
what I love most by what hurts me most
when I try to do without it, I would
have to pick arms over wings.


PROTOZOAN LOVE

Proto•zoan
Their name means
not quite animal,
means
not like us.
But they’re where we came from—
microscopic swimmers
in the primordial soup
where everything was sea
and no land.

They move like little
ticking clocks, measuring their
short lives in forward spurts.
Pliant machines
diving blindly
through forests of weeds.

Are they happy?
They don’t need a mind
to do what they do,
so it doesn’t bother them that
they don’t know what happy is.
Their flagella undulate.
Their cilia beat
in perfect synchrony.
Their pellicles protect them
from the outside world.
They work so well,
but they don’t know love.

If only they could feel what we feel.
Plumb the ocean depths of passion.
Know from a smile, a wordless
glance across a crowd, that you
fill all the crevices of someone’s mind.

But maybe my height
has clouded my vision—maybe I
look down on them
as the mountain looks down on me—

What if there is,
somewhere in their
tiny ticking bodies, a wish
to be held?
Or irrationally believed in
beyond all doubt?

Who hasn’t yearned for something
they’ve never known?
Been homesick for a place
they’ve never been?

Maybe down in the muck
in the mangrove swamps
among the interwoven roots
Protozoa are discovering new truths
about the nature of attachment.
Or at least enjoying some coital bliss.
Down in the muck
seems as likely a place as any
for discoveries about yearning to be made.

Evolution is an endlessly patient
maiden aunt, who steers her charges
with a light hand
and mostly lets them go their own way.
They may well have given
their guardian the slip, snuck
out one night and found,
earlier on the phylogenetic tree
than we once thought,
those immortal secrets that
Rumi’s words whispered of.