How To Say, You're Not Ready For The World?

How To Say, You're Not Ready For The World?

How to say, You’re not ready for the world?

How to say, Beware…/Don’t…/Remember to…?

I’m not sure about your future, son

After making war with the animals, the climate

Wears a hole in hope’s traditional gown

And deep hollows hang in the mirror

Of your Mother

How will you fly the world without my wings

Stretched over yours when you leap? 

Will yours unfurl?

“Look father!” you say, “Papa!”

In the distance:  A speck

Gasping, I see you soar, your shadow careens the city, the world

Your movements, the questions of sages

Our plasticized brains and seas! 

Nevertheless

You have unfurled

When The Fascists Come

When The Fascists Come

If the fascists take over, will there still be flesh

That seizes up in awe on the arms of the sound

Of the boy channeling Chopin's piano?

When the fascists take aim, will the lovers on the beach

Singing from their deep and sturdy gaze

Hear the rifling in their own green voices?

As the fascists leap from their trucks (and they will have trucks)

Will they pause in heavy duty boots to listen

To the guitarist plucking the quietest cloud?

Mostly, in these times of fascism, I wonder

If people will clap along with the thunder, if troops

Will outshine the sax, if blooms will turn to fruit.

Will we still sing when we are deep and well alone

Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah? And will it seem to us, when the fascists come

Like cherries hanging on a chorus of song?

You may not see Horaijima

 

All Is Heiwa
 
 
You have had to wait
For the midpoint of your lifespan
To learn about Horaijima, island of
Everlasting happiness
 
Paradise Island
So very close, yet, as they say
You will never get there alive
With all there is behind
 
Behind you, desire
Across silences, a line of ripples
As eight geese caress the waters
In a line of purpose
 
Intrinsically paddling
Around and around Horaijima
White and black and mottled
And you notice, blinking
 
Wide-eyed
At their offering: A collective
Swimming salute to the banks
Across from Paradise
 
Where powerful black pine
The bonsaid pinus thunbergia
Poke the sun that follows the path
Of the curving shore
 
You may not see Horaijima
So close it is so far, its sugi, straight
Cedar Into sky. However, your body
Curves against mine
 
On the banks of Keiunto
Island of the Auspicious Cloud
Where all is heiwa, all is heiwa
Again, heiwa