Progressive

We want to know
Who does the things
That make the world
Shudder sideways.

We want to know
What's wrong with things,
Where things went wrong,
What we can do.

We want to know
It's good to know,
That knowing things
Will help us out.

We want to know
We know more now,
That we have sought
What can be found.

A Swim and a Beer

My body, being me and
Infinitely more than me, does
As it pleases, and sometimes
What it pleases surprises
Me by pleasing me.
Just as often, it just hurts.

And that is that,
The whole mad romance, 
The convoluted partnership, the dark
Chocolate and bitter
Brown beer, the triangular
Tragedy of we sweet three,

Oh  life,
My body
And me.

Second Kenning (Selkie Eyes)

Mermaids have mermen for fathers,
Who strand ashore just like their daughters.
Once tricked, we learn to talk and totter,
While yearning to return to water.

Ghost and River

Not that I'm not
Sometimes grateful,
A little bit glad
For this world, filled

With sheer, dire grace.
When I'm driving
Along, alone
With my daughter

Babbling in back,
Down the Ghost
Highway or down
The River Road,

I can see why
God would desire
A little note.
"It's lovely. Thanks."

The Unpardonable Sin of the World

Please, please may all 
Kind gods and buddhas,
Good prophets and true 
Moral sages forgive me 
If I've got this wrong, but

Humans are a peculiar social species,
A peculiarly social species.
We're a bit like wolves, a bit
Like ants, a bit like chimpanzees.

We are not fixed into our roles,
But we are fixed into having roles
And rules to orchestrate them.

As cultures of peoples, thus, we are well 
Adapted to the whole shebang of climates,
Generalists who can be as particular as you please,

But as individual organisms we are wired
To one and only one true, 
Human-specific ecosystem: 
Other people. Which is, I beg

To plead, perhaps 
As well the reason why
I have never yet encountered
A spiritual point of view
That didn't advise aligning
Oneself with the nonhuman
Universe as if it were
An important human
Personage or population.

We teach each other that the keys
To right living, even
Salvation and enlightenment,
Consist of proper attitudes
Toward the world, affects we believe
Effective, as though the world were all one 
Extension of our fireside fellows
And village elders in concentric circles.

Sometimes we urge
Each other to humility
Toward that enormity not us,
As if it could feel the need
To put us in our place.
Other times we advocate
Gratitude, as if cultivating
Friendship with a superior.
Affection, gift-giving, loyalty, respect,
Calm, trust, all the social 

Virtues are the solutions
We try out on the rocky 
Shores and distant stars,
Having been so far
Successful at making our own
Species our principal
Environment, we can't
Stop ourselves from treating
All things as our own species.

Old news, I know, and plenty
Of skillful apologists to handle it.
What's amazing is not that we do it,
Not that we know, more or less,
That it's a bogus approach, that
God would have to be too big
To get hurt feelings, that the loving
Oneness at the core of all must
Also be greater than social emotions
As we can construe them, forcing
Us to build our holy opinions
Into nests of paradoxes 
For which we blame language
And our own poor social skills--
Too selfish, too hateful, too
Egotistical we say we are. No,

What's amazing is that we can
Be horrified by the notion
That the nonhuman universe
Is simply not human, not social,
When here we are convinced
An uncaring world must be unkind.

Has it occurred to no prophet
Yet that it's a mercy
Not every thing 
Is us, is like us, 
Nor likes, nor dislikes us?

What Should We Do Now?

To the extent that something's good,
It's good. It doesn't mean all's well

With the world or everything else
Is false. It holds no ironies

That some things are good but not all. 
Nothing's done, nor needs to be done.

I'm done with declaring I'm done,
Or at the least, I'm done with should.

One Harold Bench

This
Has been
The summer
Of counting things.
You've been counting breaths
In your meditations;
I've been counting strokes per swim,
Steps to push the baby stroller
Over the hillside drive each morning,
Minutes to go before waking up.
Together we count the days, weeks, 
Months of our daughter's first year,
Our pieces of summer,
Days since we got here,
Days we have left
At last count,
Always
Less.