Originally posted 10/18/2011.

You! You
tower of smart dirt, 
intelligent water,
column of excited minerals, whirling
storm of atoms, chattering prophecy
of the pure light
hidden in the darkest crevices — 
how is it possible
that all you want to talk about
is stopping the end of the world?

Get serious, you.
This world is not going to end.
Our species may shuffle off at some point,
other species will fall with us,
there will be suffering, it’s all a big mess — 
all true, all of
no consequence.

Your atoms are going to keep talking.
In a thousand years
they will come upon better truth
than you ever conceived,
or on to the same truth
you won’t acknowledge now:
we’re an extension of
the pure thoughts of stones.
Nothing’s ever going to stop them
from thinking, no matter how hard
we try to deny them the pleasure.

You! Get serious — 
yes, ease suffering,
redistribute wealth,
play fair,
establish guidelines, even
salvage as much of the planet
as there is in our remaining time
as you can
but do it because

it is in our shared calling
to do it
even though there is in fact
nothing ever lost
and therefore 
nothing to save.

Originally posted 5/31/2011.

Face up in bed,
wide awake,
waiting again to be impaled
like a bug on a pin
upon the memory
of the time I mercy-killed the squirrel
on the front lawn after its mauling
by the neighborhood stray
we all hated.

I pulled a strong knife
and slashed once, then twice,
over its tooth-mashed throat;
saw the spurt, saw it relax at once.
Then I reached for a stone
and nailed that dog in the ribs.

and it took off howling with me howling
after it, running it off, its shallow flanks
pumping ahead of me too fast
to catch.

I do not fear the memory for its horror,
but for its delights —

its promise of deus ex machina,
its flavor of massacres, camps,
and gallows blessed by others — 

its tang of permission.