Experiment:

a name given to 
a series of deliberately planned
and executed actions taken
with an eye toward
potential success but also 
with full awareness of 
the potential for mistake
or even disaster,
the point of which is not to 
succeed or fail, but to learn
from neither the joy nor the despair
engendered by whichever outcome,
but from recording and interpreting
the bare facts left bobbing
in the experiment’s wake.

If one could divorce oneself from 
joy and despair, one could theoretically
learn much from the long experiment
of living itself,

but nothing substantial
or useful.

1.
Not to be confused with insomnia
is polyphasic sleep where one sleeps early
and then wakes in mid-dark for an activity
such as sex or farm chores or writing or reading
or idle television viewing; 

when that is done
one returns to sleep and sleeps
until full waking. This is allegedly 
an ancient pattern that was common until
the advent of electric lighting broke us
of natural habits. It has enjoyed a resurgence
in the popular imagination
in recent years as we try to justify 

leaping from dream to awakening
in the middle of the night
without explanation. It sounds scientific
and right and logical and it’s soothing,
of course, to believe that there are reasons
for whatever happens to us.

2.
Portrait of a typical night’s passage
in the modern era:

evening comfort to later boredom to sleep aid
(such as cannabis or alcohol
or masturbation or exhausted rage
at the Great Unnamed)

to slumber to waking to staring 
at ceiling, at walls, at all of history
as preface to what is to come until this
kills enough urge to stick around
and see the outcome that we fall
back to sleep until the alarm sounds

and we rise unwilling to the New
that is the same Old.

3.
Polytheists might describe
the Mid-Night Waking as
a normal thing driven by local gods
at their shift change — they 
punch in and out and we’re the clocks
that register the bustle. 

Monotheists might say
it’s the moment we recognize our sins
or the glory of the One
and we can’t sleep through that. Atheists

might say we wake for biological 
imperatives long ago programmed. 
No one knows, say the agnostics.
All of them say we should try to make the best
of the time we have between the Sleeps,

although there’s something to be said 
that is not said well by any of them
or by any of us about the utility of sleep 
not merely for rest or for how it facilitates 
dreaming, but for how that unconsciousness
prepares us for and protects us from 
the fear we have of what we see
while awake; perhaps we wake in the dark
merely to take a breath before we plunge 
back into those better depths.

Maybe we’re meant to be whales, concealed
for long periods from the Light.

Maybe we’re meant to be comets,
passing through only at intervals.

Maybe we are multiple gods,
or multiples of
God, 

putting divinity
on the pillow for a spell,

learning to be comfortable
at letting it all Be.

In the dirt, a gleaming bead.
He picks it up — is it
glass or stone,
valuable or
trash?

He wonders if it matters —
if it’s survived 
underfoot
on this hard trodden path
for any length of time,

it has proven itself 
worthy of at least admiration
if not adoration. Lifts it
to his eye; looks through;
all he sees is sky.

He chooses 
not to choose a price tag
to hang upon
this uncommon fortune
found in a common place,

uses the small treasure to see
the farthest thing he can see,
the farthest anyone can see;
drops the bead for the next seeker
to find; moves on.

you have risen from
your accustomed seat
at the table

leaving behind
an empty bowl
once full of almonds
a few small scraps
of sharp cheese
on an antique plate
a drained glass of wine

you have left the room
and stepped
onto the porch
to watch moonrise
with new and old friends

turned from having
a simple dinner
into a life where simplicity
offers such complex chances
to glimpse the Divine

into the feeling
of satisfaction and joy
at having shared bread with others

and then under the full yellow disc
of the tide-drawing moon

to stand with them
arm hooked into arm
and shoulder
against shoulder

this night has been
a contained ecstasy
of perfected company
a peasant symphony played
behind the sharing of
almonds cheese and wine

this night has been all 
a soul needs from its body

When there’s a will, there’s a way;
when there are two wills
there’s a weigh-in,
a preparation for contest.

I looked the other guy
in the chest and said
this wasn’t going to be
good.  But enough in me

claimed the side of right 
to feel that a fast first strike
would be enough, and so
I struck first, dirty-style,

the kick to the balls, 
the worst thing defined
under the playground code.
Down he went, but I’d missed

how many of his friends were there, 
had forgotten I was old now
and hadn’t been on a playground
in years; fortunately they took

more pity upon me than the code 
would have suggested I deserved,
and I came away more or less 
intact, at least for the long term,

but I learned something that day 
about what boys some men remain
long after they graduate
from elementary school; learned

how many years a sense of panic
gained at eight can last, learned
how badly I wanted to be eight again,
and how easily that could happen.

Tired of all our words
being about ourselves and other
people.  Not only tired of
the bad words, not just tired of
the good words; sick of all the words
being put into service of our selves
and our venal yearnings.

To be or not to be,
to do or not to do,
whether we should do it
or someone else should,
how much we are loved
and how much we love in return;
all too much.  All unworthy of
one more weary attempt
at squeezing art
from the commonplace, 
the pseudo-universal — 
we are so little of what is.

To give up the pursuit
of human meaning,  
the exclusive chase for
human justice
and human peace, 
to end this unceasing gaze
upon human, human, human —

here’s a rock. Tell of its
inner life, its mineral dreams.
Here’s an oak log rotting in 
the deep unraked leaves 
of old growth. Speak of how the decay
feels to its empty cells, to the molds
and fungus inhabiting it. Perhaps
these last small patches
of grey, ragged snow may offer
a unique perspective on the advent
of Spring, some point of view
unheard till now.  Get an ear on these
and listen. There may be new ideas here;

listen. There may be a new urgency here;
listen. There may be a need for
entirely new language here,
it may require a new brain; if so, listen

then grow whatever’s needed to get beyond 
the tired trope of human; it can’t hurt
much more than what we do now hurts,
and it may not even work — in fact
it won’t — but it may be that
this attempt, this translation, is
what we were put here to do,
and for the love of all 
that’s yet to be seen as holy
if that is the case
there’s so little time
and so much left to be done.

That there is such a thing
as a cedar waxwing — olive splash
high up in the crowns of trees,
rarely seen though plentiful because
we keep our eyes low —

that there is such a thing
as a leopard slug — elegant
upon the sidewalk, long enough
that when first glimpsed it can shock
with its size, its patterned skin,
its silver path laid out behind it —

that there are such beings
right outside the front door,
that they endure in spite of us and our
casual, presumed engulfing of all,
our arrogance regarding our absolute power
over nature —

that such as these remain
although we think we’ve taken all away,
wringing our hands over our Power —

that such things exist to rebuke such hubris
with the laughter of their persistence
is my unending joy, my fallback from despair —

to know that we will likely not endure
as long as these will
is enough knowledge of the future
to keep me here.

You replaced
your mental image
of your anatomy
with a weather map

Though map
is not territory
this has influenced your core
into becoming a named storm

Centered among the isobars of rib and spine
a cyclone of terrible size gaining strength
Enough intensity to change
the landscape so completely

you would need a new map
You need one now in fact

You traded
your natural trust
for trinkets to hold
as you prayed against fear

A gun or a knife
Some talisman for a promise
that if Danger loomed
you would strike back

A bottle or some jumble
of pills and smoke 
kept close to ward yourself off
if you became Danger

You held so tightly to them
your crabbed hands could never hold a child

You swapped out dark for light
then reversed your decision
then reversed that decision
then reversed that decision yet again

with the speed of a sewing needle
in an electric machine 
stitching together a garment
from contradictions

Blind stabs into whole cloth
to make a scratchy cloak
for whenever you stepped out
to face the world

You were naked underneath and
terrified that everyone could see

So half naked and fully armed
and built from bad weather
you are still here
in spite of yourself

All your fallacies intact
All shades of hunger and want
remain the same today as they were
when you first lied about them 

You’re really just a lonely old body
made of pure ordinary and
if you surrendered now
the howling within might lessen

What name would you give
to that quiet