Monsieur Dasein a de beaux moments

"The most beautiful moments, the most

dreadful quarter hours," to quote the wag

with a perhaps a touch of envy at the staggering

ambition of his totalizing contemporary.

You don't have to be a huge fan of either,

nor of opera, nor even of animated parodies

involving carrot-chomping cartoons in blonde

wigs and horned iron helmets to feel the pull

of that witticism, to feel, in a slightly offended,

slightly contented sort of way, your life

resembles that remark. Moments remain
memorable for being unretainable,

for never remaining, not even even for

one moment, while clock wings, sundials,

moons, seasons, calendars, forever
entertain the stunning power

of appearing stupendously inert

at any moment of closer inspection.

You can feel this, yes, and yet never
guess whether the quarter hours

are the actual authors of the beauty
with which the moments, passing

as these rustles of light rearranging
shadows, manage to enchant us.

The Argument of the Trees

     -I-

Juniper-piñon have at it,
Knotting roots through overgrazed ground.

The one with the tiny blue cones
That could pass for dusky berries

Appears cheerier, but twisted,
And holds the older, drier soul.

The spikier one the jays love,
The one with desirable seeds,

Takes the aloof, optimistic role
Appropriate to monastics,

Grows mystic, an elf tree of life,
An incense for eternal flame.

It hugs and shares the higher ground
While juniper devours scoured dirt.

The shorter-lived beasts move through both
Thoughts under branches of language,

Perpetuating a debate
No jay, coyote, or spider

Will ever span from end to end.
The horned gods themselves will forget

Their advancements advocated
By browsing lightning-struck notions

Of what belongs where and whether
Trees can or should keep faith. Begin. . . .

     -II-

I advance a parable
Of equanimity, states
The juniper. I admit

I have the greater fortune
In the current disaster.
Others' loss of habitat

Has been my gain. But recall,
Individuals arise
And then find themselves stranded

When the next twist in the winds
Sweeps the ground from under them.
Populations never know.

I found myself congenial
To the ground in which I grew.
Envy me. I find myself

Tonight at the outer edge
Of the moisture my roots hunt.
Pity me. Discovery

Disabuses me of hope
And other things with feathers
You, for instance, would require

For any seeds to take root.
Envy me. And so on. This
Is the wisdom of borders.

     -III-

Friend, I watch you thrive and am content,
Smiles the pine, a little spikily,
From lofty, precarious retreats
Where the air is cooler and clearer,

Though neither cool nor as clear as once.
Every abbey in the mountains falls
Under the sway of this or that reign,
But the green wheel spins eternally.

I savor your equanimity,
But feel no need to participate
In distinctions of one and many.
I rejoice in my community,

And in the resilience of the true,
The authentic, the dependent
On one another. I love the blue
Of the birds that steal and save my thoughts

For later, ineluctable fates,
The fresh incarnations of one life.
There is no winning or losing. This
Is the faith of quiet withdrawal.

     -IV-

I would love to have faith for faith,
But I know how intent you are
In keeping your faith in yourself,

Which can't help keep deceiving you,
Replies the juniper in turn.
And so they go on together,

With none, least of all them, knowing
How much longer this partnership
Can continue coexisting,

Although the latest threats to them
Secretly still crave to see them
Contesting, canyon by canyon.

Zion Eno

We arrive from the east.
We're three in three million
Visitors to the park,

Hopeful of making home.
We listen to music
From another country.

We laugh through the tunnels
Our daughter imagines,
Excitedly, contain

Not mere dinosaur bones,
Real dinosaurs. Good myths
Keep just such mystery,

The chance of being true
In dark places: listen,
Return to light, breathe in.

Aerodynamic

Welcome to the soap-box
Derby of well being.
Gravity rules the race.
Contestants disappear

Down a bottomless hill.
The winners, or at least
The most admired, are those
Staying upright longest

And gone farthest downslope
At the moment they crash
And vanish, although points
Go to high speed and style.

You can whittle corners,
Become a trim machine,
Build out of balsa,
Organics, yoga, prayer,

Nothing but earth-friendly
Materials. Your wheels
Spin in calm contentment,
Parasols, robes, and flags

Protect your decorum.

You may glide forever,
Serenely over cliffs.
You are out of control.

Aesop's Academic Synonyms for Acedia

"To be sullen in the sweet air is the sin of acedia."

1. The Turtle's Deliquescent Dive

It really is, so far as we know, turtles
All the way down. Demonstrate the difference
Between turtles and any phase shift they missed
Between shells and stubby tails and leathern feet.
Here, psychology ends and biology
Begins; here biology ends, chemistry
Begins; here chemistry finishes, physics
Takes over, and here there be monsters, the end.

You don't think so? What does anything rest on?
What does everything rest on? What is the rest?
Guess. Lacustrine, glittering guesses are best.

2. The Camel's Otiose Tourist

"I dare say you wish to know
How the Plague is going on
At Cairo?" Oh yes, I wish
So devoutly to be told
How the latest tarot pull
Might affect me in Cairo.
Go away. Stop reminding me

So much of my silly self.
It's not that I wish to be
Any other beast than you
Or me. I'm only so tired
Of being a beast at all,
Weary as I live and breathe
Of speaking as you to me.

3. The Word Mule in the Bureau of Homeland Torpidity

Information is not intrinsically
About anything. I misquote of course,
Which is the braying idiot's license.

Real poets are more rigorous. They learn
To disrespect physicists, the atoms
Of Democritus, without relying

On gibberish cribbed from their disrespect.
Illegal, border-slipping, mule poets
Smuggle others' notions in their phrasings,

As if a poem could embody insight
The way equations model mystery.
But there are worse things to be than a mule.

Personally, I pity the strata
Compressed in arabesques of deception,
As if the rocks that layer the fossils

Had any choice in what they collected
From the past for some future eureka.
It's true, I may have to apply myself

To the fierce bureaucracy of language,
Begging admittance past the gates of scorn,
Putting up with armed puns that accost me,

But at least I'm permitted to apply.
And the reward is always a surprise,
The night sight of thought's guardian angels

Struggling up the wall of the universe,
Overloaded and exasperated
By the weight of patrolling beasts' parole.

4.  Toad's Last Estivation Dream

One is always the most impressed
By someone else who is doing
Cheerfully and well whatever
One least wants to do at all. Oh,
To be turtle, weight of the world
Of turtles on my shoulders. Oh,
To be sullen in the sweet air!

Belated Tuesday's Eastermath

How hard is it to add a little glee
To the memory to make it adhere?

Easter Sunday, well anticipated
By those with surplus sugar on their minds

And by those desirous of holiness
Or a little fun, free time, done is gone.

The calendrical world moves on, never
Keeping up with the slowing rotation

Of our planet of life, never fitting
Amorphous anamneses that named time

The glorious lord of life. Let's love it.
Let's love it as we ought. Let's be gleeful

In our Fabergé eggs of retrospect.
Let us open and close our shells and laugh.

Surprise Sutra

(For the Eight Hundred Fools, One)

We never know, going away,
Whether we will ever come back.
Sometimes, we assume that we will.
Sometimes, we assume that we won't

And then weep all over ourselves.
But we don't know. Not even when
It's a short walk. Not even when
It's death. So we tell each other,

Gravely, never, ever assume.
I presume that's why we're always
Convinced that we've learned our lesson,
And that's why we're always surprised.