I listen to the enunciation
of the ripples, critiquing
the naysayers:
how could life exist
at the rate
we treat it?
How can the heart
persevere under the weight
of its occupying force?
But such concerns do not
generate profit; no worry
of the heart bears a girder.
They are inconveniences
to the brutal normalcy.
They are abandoned corpses.
At best, the ironies are mild.
Days drag on from their abrupt
start to their eventual end.
Lives cascade side-by-side,
lives end as others begin―
few arise as many descend . . .
Souls are splattered with engine
grease, melody and lyrics
cry for a course outward.
I yearn, O I yearn,
simply, and clearly,
for sight to be zeroed.
For willful, steady breath
to arise, be mustered,
in all of us . . .
For ourselves, for each other,
for the basic merit to say
we all heeded the call.
These quiet babbles of truth
that lie in so-called “nature”
are here to guide us.
Let us mark a spot to
come back to, a place
to resurrect ourselves.