In tenth-century Arab Andalusia
under Abd-ar-Rahman the Third,
poetry took the place
of newspapers and poets
sang of everything
from the faces of God
to the price of mutton.
While the rest of Europe lay dark and stony
in thrall to iron Church singularity,
Cordoba rang with Jewish and Christian songs
as the muezzins roused others to prayer
with Arabic.  Spain as we know it today
was being born,
someone was listening to all of this
while looking at an oud
and inventing the guitar,
everywhere the gardens were light
and filled with splashing water,
palaces were cool
and open,
the streets were tingling with ideas…

and now,
it’s all we can do
to look at one another.

Two hours into the daylight
and I’m still hunting A Beast
Apparently Too Stubborn
To Be Taken.

Considering, therefore,
a return to bed for an hour
or two.  There’s potential refreshment
in that casual, temporary death

that may lead to sharper tools.
Certainly, there’s no point
in watching the news and sipping
mediocre coffee; no inspiration

in there for further effort.  The Beast
thrives on a diet of unconsciousness
and rejection.  If I offer these to him
as bait, he may come shyly forward

and lie down that I may take him
and tame him.  That’s such hard work.
While I may appear slothful
to the uninformed,

It takes such measures
to grind away
a pursuit that kills
as much as it enlivens.

It only looks easy
because all most people see
is the tamed Beast.  Only hunters
understand what it takes to tame him.