Poem for Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Coming Down (continued)

III.

It's time to just sit. 

So, I, we, sit and in my

       finite mind I attempt to enumerate my thoughts

to no avail. Tonight, I sit with you, dear friend,

at the bottom of suicidal steps in the dark. The

water roars from the east, blocked by the dam, and

we compare it to magma, questioning its

                    state of matter. What is our state of matter?

Do we matter?

        And I tune out the abstract/philosophical bullshit right

there. Religion and love. Faith and concepts.

                     There are six fluorescent lights across the water,

their photons skimming across the ripples, and you compare

them to a famous painting with six asymmetrical persimmons

and then talk of Daoism. Or Buddhism.

         We-are-what-we-make-of-it-ism. That is my RELIGION.

I am reminded of you, Lady Pontellier, contemplating

walking right into the water and dying jovially, but I

          could never bring myself to do that. I have no courage!

Sitting on the steps and gazing at the seemingly futile tributary that

is only lit by six persimmon lights and the fluttering lunar

penumbra (the moon! the moon! never forget it), and I know the earth

is moist from inconsistent rain, embedded with the

marks of ungulates and mosquito droppings.

                        And the troublesome tree to the west puts on many

facades--a dog, a pirate skull, death smiling with dichotomous leaves.

           Two planes take a low flight behind us, blue lights. Blue lights

across the water. Why blue lights? The universe, shapeshifting as

it may seem, must always revert back to a primary color. That

is

all

I have learned in my two decades of breathing.

             But you, friend, half bred of the Orient, are even older

than I! I have corrupted you with nicotine and nostalgia,

and you have corrupted me with guilt from my own naivety!

REVELATION: though unadulterated love is our principal priority,

we are also here to corrupt each other.

And ashes to ashes, and dust to dust.

And I have not forgotten you, weeping father, beloved mother, Stoic grand-

mother, manly brother. I have not forgotten you.

Coming down again, my only hope is to reduce the universe to

matter, then atom, then ion, then quark, then -------! What else

can be salvaged under the humid Toadsuck sky?

(to be continued)