Oh, say I have not
completely forgotten
the lion?  For
there was a lion once,
seated in the supermarket
near the cereal.

I had been shopping
and turned the corner
to find it — yes, this is coming back
to me now —
there was a lion, not raging,
not sleeping, just sitting.
I thought at first
it was some promotion, then realized
only I could see it.   

I looked at the lion a long time 

without being able
to see it completely.
It seemed mostly eyes
and of course teeth.
But color of mane, of fur, of claws —
I could see none of these, or can remember
nothing.  

What is this lion to me 
now?  Reminder
of how we all hunted once
or perhaps of how we were hunted.
Speaker for the wild not found
in the supermarket. Disturbance
in the daily, torn fabric in the mask.

Memory of eyes, mostly.
Of teeth.  And present emotion?
Mostly still fear, but now less of the lion
than of forgetting the lion.

Messy room with too many things?
Don’t panic –all the better to hide yourself.

An ascended master would tell you
to simplify and get rid of all that stuff.

I say, load up, get busy
making and buying toys.

You ain’t no saint and no one
wants to look at you,

so disappear as deep
as you want to in there.

The gurus who tell you to take it easy on
the salt, fat, and inorganic chemistry

you put in your mouth?  How stretched
and unhappy they appear.  Get fat on burgers

and fries if you so desire;
screw the lectures

from the newly Ayurvedic
and embrace what we’ve got here —

a culture staggering toward a new world devoid
of all we’ve grown to assume will last forever.

The righteous scream at you for species die-offs
and cracking glaciers.  They’re right

but they’re mostly upset for themselves.
The planet will die, they holler and shout.

Liars, deceivers, bullshit sellers.
This planet will not die, regardless of what we do.

Species will die, we will die —
but the planet, the great Connector Of All?

The planet won’t die.  It’s getting ready to twitch us off
like a particularly persistent mite.

One flick and — WHOOP —
we’re gone like dodos and moderates.

In five hundred years
it won’t even matter what we polluted or slew.

We’ll be as embarrassing as an old tattoo
to the planet, and just as easy to cover up.

So consume and collect and gorge and retch in the meantime.
You and the gurus are about to get cozy in the grave.

You and your stuff are about to get equally inanimate
and equally forgotten.  Polar bears, honeybees,

the Dalai Lama, and you together at last, finally
in agreement on one thing:  that it was too late

the minute the first of us stuck a head up
over the tall grass of Africa and thought:  mine.