for CJD
To the end of something
sticks a glistening caudal structure,
scaly with lights, and floating
towards a new beginning
necessarily.
This is a me,
an entity that comes to know
and know itself, slowly, longly,
over who knows what arc
of time experienced or otherwise
slept through with green leaves.
2.
Start-ups on all sides.
The politics of hiding in the trees
because they are there
before us and endure
our trespassing.
What do children think?
Whatever it is
they will do it all their lives
along the Mississippi of their grief.
3.
So cut and run.
Be for once
another kind of animal.
Revere the difference.
This is going you know
to wind up in church—
you pick the altar.
Or become it yourself.
4.
How slow this is
to get where it’s going!
That’s because it’s here
already, and you are
(as we used to say
in hide and seek), you are it.
It’s up to you to find
the god or goddess
hidden in the woods.
Or their word left over
in wood itself.
Hold a piece of it
up to your ear and hear.
5.
See, there’s an image.
A piece of wood.
None too clear. Taut maple,
easy pine, the text
won’t say. Just wood.
Hold it, hear it, let
it tell you what it is
and what it knows.
6.
When years ago I moved up here
from Asphalt Island
there were trees a-plenty.
And now there are so many more.
The density of the dendropolis
has grown more than even I
could have hoped with all my
over-the-top romantic wish.
The trees are many and men few.
I feel like an intruder as I walk
among them, reverent, and they
don’t seem to mind, some even
welcome me and tell me this and that,
I am not at liberty yet
to tell you all they tell.
But they do talk, they are kind to me,
I feel like a cat in a crowd of people,
tolerated, even liked by some,
allergen to others, a furry foreigner.
But no fur, just little me among
the gigantic trees, fifty foot oaks
and ninety foot tulipiferas.
This is what I’ve been getting at
all along—we are in the minority
on land, a bunch of noisy immigrants.
We would do well to take care
not to offend these innumerable elders.
7.
Hylonoetic:
everything that is or was
in any sense alive
has consciousness.
And everything with consciousness
can talk. And does talk.
And we can learn to hear.
Wood or metal,
carapace or bone,
winged or worm—
they all report.
Things think.
Matter sings.
8.
It’s the weekend now,
Sonnenschein und Wochende
the Germans sing
to the tune of Happy Days Are
Here Again, less sinister
than our election anthem.
Sunshine on the Weekend
they sing out, and weekend
means get ready to decide
just what kind of religion
suits your personal weather.
Sabbath or Sunday or some
darker name or brighter song,
Mass or minyan, mosque or
here we sit within our ancient
cavern in the mountainside
where thinking runs quietly
and goes as far as mind can go.
August 2020
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