The Un-Naming of Us: 365 Haiku

1 – 8, Speech

roll your tongue, pushing

pulling air into your lungs

spitting out the truth

It sounds like, “Ahem,”

“Hmmm,” “Uhhhhh,” “Ungh,” “Ach,” “I…don’t know…”

how to speak it clear…

a quiet phrasing

sun scent of warming grasses

softer expression

thin reed whistle sound

pitched like the tilt of a bird’s wing

cutting bright air clean

comes as a stumble

breaking wavelet memory

grit of sand, breadfruit

warmly sticky hands

fatigue of dirt road laughing

symphony at night

sour sweet brother breath

heavy sigh as puppies sleep

adults speaking low

almost separate

a photograph held lightly

“Was this us? Really?”

9 – 12, Before Time

…there are no word-sounds

for the beginning movements,

before anything

What was there? Expanse?

Just a void-full vacuum space?

An empty socket?

There can be no wind,

if nothing moves a muscle.

No wind, no muscles.

so conspicuous,

the absence of everything

we might call ‘alive’

13 – 17, Melding

arrangements were made

atom configurations

created the spark

Ain’t got a name, no

or a mind like our new minds

no sense of itself

no imagined time

or knowledge of space beyond

nothing but knowing

Knowing not like us,

but, moving without effort

without intention

The sweetest pulling

elemental attraction

bonds beyond breaking

18, Initial Questions

Was there a whisper,

a murmuring in the dark?

Did the first cells sigh?

19 – 23, Utterances

beautiful, we were

in all the ways we have been

alive and dying

The snow and ice

the fires and beasts, new life

not knowing what comes

oh, to remember

that the world was here before

we discovered names

…all so long ago,

there is no one who can tell,

can’t speak that story.

silent origins

are not soundless, listen here:

speech without talking

25 – 28, Without Knowing

bromeliads grew

and the lizards sprouted wings

it took a good while

before winding clocks

or any imagining

of long nighttime hours

slow living and death

just as daily as it is now

without knowing time

there was no distance

no measurement of the miles

nothing had a name

29, Truth

the land was nameless

there was no way to say ‘home’

no one to say ‘home’

30 – 33, Innation

all creatures know, tho’…

creation lessons taught them

where they can survive

all things born knowing

what they crave and what they fear

DNA knowledge

To run, to jump, dig

to eat grubs, seeds, fish, algae

to keep on living

Pituitary

endocrine and thyroid gland

signaling us: Grow.

34 – 35, 4 Ws

We learn as we go

the sourness and sickness,

the sweetness and warmth

we thrive or falter

depending on when and where

who, what we are born

36, Truth (2)

for some of us here

life is a slow-blinking eye

over and done, gone

37 – 40, Instinct

the first words were grunts

howls, songs sung without singing

the scream of murder

storms were almighty

new hominids had no gods

death-fear was instinct

the striving of life

required no will at all

it was natural

To seek out food, hunt

to gather, drink water from leaves

these were not choices

41, Truth(3)

oceans did not choose

the rhythm of tidal flow

rain falls without choice

42 – 46, Anthro

afarensis, comprende?

Australopithecus, yo?

Old Lucy no se

it became a job

to dig up hundreds of bones

study the fragments

unearth the sacred

Use the most delicate brush

remove dirt from teeth

Lay out the bodies

rib cage, femur, mandible

marvel at the skulls

Ethiopia

Tanzania, Olduvai

footprints left in ash

47 – 50, Naming

our ancestors died

howling in the flaming heat

without knowing death

Homo habilis

Long prior to the Maasai

Place of wild sisal

The Great Rift Valley

one million years ago, man

Kariandusi

These are made up names

for places we claim to know

as ours to lay claim

51 – 54, History

Thick walls enclosing

the city-town of Jericho…

why did they need walls?

Catal Huyuk held

spaces for worship, women

made of stone and clay

Organized villages

created special labors

jobs and roles, talents

Tasks took on value

products emerged in surplus

trade began, tribes fought

55 – 57, In Modern Rendition

How does this show up

thousands of years later?

Colonial turf wars

even kids know it

colors become codified

Street sign boundaries

Elder mothers mourn

keep their own pistols loaded

Please God, watch over us.

58 – 61, of Weaponry

The earliest tools

were not made of rock and sharp bone

clawed hands were weapons

Closing into fists

strong, rough like worn-out leather

Dirt under broken nail

Never enough food

Had to learn to kill a deer

Satisfy hunger

The thrill of the hunt

predatory lust writ deep

makes human hearts beat

62 – 66, Where We Came…

go to the river

each day, every morning

wash away the blood

tell us the story

of the animals’ escape

speak in native tongue

myths of creation

shape the world as we see it

center us or them

have to be careful

of the tales we tell children

about who they are

Where did we come from?

Not our bodies, our cells, bones –

the naming of us.

67 – 70, From

Judaculla’s rock

sits speaking in the forest

speaks silent under trees.

Spelling a story

lines cut into the hard rock

for the future ones

Maps are like stories,

stories are like maps, like guides

telling us the way

Children taking turns

wander through woods far from home

name them “good” or “bad”

71 – 78, Prior

There were buffalo

clear to the ocean, huge herds

land belonged to them

This place was their home

the fields and the valley grass

their bones are still here

The water flowing

here, right on through the mountains

thousands of years old

mountains were jagged

Earth slamming into itself

rocks jutting from collisions

Broken pottery

found in the soil below banks

worn smooth at the edges

the flow of the streams

in places now dry, barren

written as ridges

From above, the lines

look just like your fingerprints

swirled sand beaches

Before we could fly

everything was smaller

and yet still so vast

81 – 88, Forging

roots grow persistent

somehow breaking through hard stone

making small pathways

In the night, rocks fall

land heavy and stay forever

or til they erode…

it’s not a secret:

there is no forever here

it’s easy to see.

Yawn, oh great cloud break

not witnessed in the pre-dawn

opening above

The breath of owl song

a thread through trees, pushing soft

making sound-cut spaces

Tilt of the orbit

positions a planet near

closer to the moon

The woman pauses

never noticed that before

Looking up, surprised

There are slim chances

brief windows, prime conditions

sap rise, season shift

89 – 95, Forests

No words for the sound

capillaries opening

eyes dilating wide

Tremble of vein stretch

cellulose walls forming up

to become an oak

Entire empires thrive

tucked in around the root web

pulsing in dark soil

scientists can hear

by way of lines on paper

amplification

voices from the trees

the subaudible gasping

bite of the chainsaw

how to amplify

millions of hearts beating fast

terrified in flight

pass the mic over

colonies of insects scurry

carry out big plans

96 – 100, Archae

Skilled human being

2.5 million years ago

Homo habilis

it was crucible

the birth place, cradling us

civilization

Land was colored gold

and gods lived everywhere

in everything

winds and fires speak

tell what those who came before

wish us to know, hear

secrets conjured up

feet hit the ground, dust rising

bones shake, rattle, roll

101 – 107, Habit

be invisible

walk without touching the ground

do not make a sound

cover the smell up

with crushed leaves, sharp scent, thick mud

leave no tracks, no trace

Hold the arrow lightly

let it be a part of you

send the point flying

Homo sapiens

the thinking human being

moved outward, naming

Paleolithic

stone tools to cut, smash, break

all with bloody hands

When the ice came

there was no lamenting cold

no questioning death

We didn’t see it

had no way to predict rain

unstoppable floods

108 – 110, Innovate

Speech was simple code

utterance and gesturing

pitch to make meaning

sequences set firm

names for flames and lions, sky

sounds for who we are

in all four corners,

seeds were sown, barley millet

rice wheat lentils corn

How did it happen?

That we suddenly knew how

to grow food to eat?

Burgeoning, winning

the thrust of diving hawk flight

cutting through the fields

111 – 115, Alchemy

our life histories

begin with the history

of all before us

They carried whispers

small stirrings that make breezes

from the prior ages

They made the world new

from mud, stars, from their own blood

they breathed life into…

they still exist, gods

even if we don’t know their stories

Don’t see them in wind

we were directed

our organs pulsed with humors

blood was once magic

116 – 121, Numinosity

schematics and maps

drew a firmament dome, hands

in the human form

world in our image

not in God’s image, in ours

at least some of ours…

Early ones knew well

that man was imperfect, crude

not like the great beasts

The ones with horns

with wings and fins, lionine

crafting the storms

There were spirit forms

and powerful dark beings

exist, still unseen

Holy books are full

cloudforms speaking, fire and blight

all the miracles

122 – 127, Composite

Look closely, breathe in

count the layers in silence

stratification

When I look at you

salt stings my eyes, I tremble

welcomed home again.

how can the clouds hold

water in the shapes of bears

briefly showing themselves?

birth of rare fever

blooming jewel of Africa

blood-colored flowers

Craving to eat stones

let them rest under the tongue

to spit or swallow

shines like dew, slug trails

dash of stars, the Milky Way‘s

constituent parts

128 – 134, -onyms

Timucuans lived

had numerous settlements

all along rivers

Names for homeplaces

never knew them to forget

“ancient history”

Never such a thing

as a “Timucuan” tribe

Spanish mispronounced

Exonyms misheard

Double mistakes in hearing

become the name known

Letters we use say

nothing of the sounds spoken

such crude translations

Two hundred thousand

more than all that died in wars

in one hundred years

that was just one tribe

one people among many

whose names we don’t know

135 – 139, Panther

in the night, she walks

slow and careful, listening

for raccoons, possums

eyes glint gold in dark

thick insect symphony sounds

rhythms for hunting

wild boars aren’t careful

they get busy, distracted

rooting, face in dirt

It’s almost easy

to run into the pack, claws out

and grab what you can

scattering screaming

everything exploding

in movement and fear

140 – 143, Sensing

In the forest shade

a tiny life moves fast, light

under leaves cool, damp.

Talon on the branch

sharper than made by machines,

perfect feathering.

The wave of a pulse,

and the night quivers alive

with unseen currents.

I’m far from the owl.

There’s too much to do everyday,

to sense a heartbeat.

144 – 148, 1984

My great grandmother

Hands like crepe baby birds

She was a racist

I remember this

at intervals, dawn

and right before sleep

Who and where and what

we are, the people, places

that gave birth to us

It all rushes in

adrenaline, cortisol

spitting out the words

refusal to go

Unsegregated swimming

1984

149 – 158, Combat

Their jawlines were smooth

tho’ hands were rough from working

holding rusted guns

Men, closed offices

drawing lines, cartography

X marks the target

my brother, your kin

became numbers, troops deployed

to die for ideas

Sleep was a joke, son

No rest for the weary there

under hellfire rain

Dream never again

no softness, no golden fields

just red explosions

it’s a trick, you see

to turn men into machines

to command their will

soil holds vibrations

sings rusted earth elegies

lay your head down, son

a monarch catches

air currents undetected

becomes transparent

walls crumble in wind

ultraviolet light dissolves

clay and stone, slowly

reports ring out, CRACK

doesn’t it split your head wide?

cities up in smoke

159 – 165, Multiplicities

In the midst of war

starvation, emergency

grasses softly blow

In dark, lives away

Gunshots ring out across town

the fire burns warm

smart submarines rest

in channels dredged from the deep

bombs in their bellies

show security badge

drive through armed gate, go slowly

everything is filmed

Trains come, broad daylight

take new spur line to the north

carrying supplies

Lockheed Martin watches

Trident Training officers

show the simulated launch

take a deep breath now

all your friends are doing it

step onto the rails

166 – 172, Entrope

You spend days waiting

looking for the envelope

but don’t want to know

You can’t get away

from news on every screen

garish smiling faces

“This isn’t real! No!”

You want to shake their shoulders

“Wake up! It’s not real!”

It feels like ice, cold

hollow like a dying tree

how real it all is

dailyness of days

the whirlwind blur not seeing

but, moving forward

Sometimes the movements

are small, stuck tight round and round

some motion skitters

There are tangles, traps

vines of kudzu, stay busy

forever growing

173 – 180, Edu

fog creeps at dew point

Early morning siren sounds

distorted, screech owls

why is the moon located

in the wrong part of the sky

easternly crescent

secrets do not lie

in obsidian spaces

between the trees

‘Cept what do we have

a light sweeping ‘round bushes

crackling footsteps

people live in woods

sleep under tarps with wet shoes

right by middle schools

there is chain link fence

and so i feel safe, ashamed,

fearing poverty

That is my secret.

Nature doesn’t keep secrets

people keep secrets

Even to ourselves

we hide the truth, who we are,

what we learn in school

181 – 187, Peri-

cadence of footfalls

dry brush of cardboard boxes

thudding gravity

rubber wheels cheapen

nuance of selecting meat

unsanitized hands

To walk like a whisper

imagine air as body

and watch where you step

you can be soundless

almost anyway – quiet

quieter than most

unspool the wires

use the hammer to break glass

open up the line, please

She felt it, knew it

Somewhere over the mountain tops

where Chance is slow born

Full crowning takes years

and it’s easy to forget

we are in birth-time

188, (…)

body as air, rise

don’t try to beat gravity

it doesn’t exist

189 – 192, Micro/Macro

Middle of the night

hands find each other

simple human ways

The mother holds child

walks down the dirt road, pointing

there is goldenrod

They don’t stop walking

to look closer at the blooming

four kinds of bees feed

We see the whole scene

offer up broad brush coding

details become blurred

193 – 198, Coverings

We learned to weave wool

spin silk from mulberry trees

invented clothing

Polyester viscose blend

in polymers mixed to make

color of rainbows

Cover yourself, girl!

Out here nekkid in the yard –

what you thinkin’, child?

The door can close, lock

sheets smell like sunshine

or something like that

Sunshine has no smell

the scent you call sunshine fresh

chemical odor

Sunshine fresh means clean

clean means decent, and decent –

who knows what that means?

199 – 203, Carryings

Late model sedan

riding up and down the road

looking for ladies

“Need a ride, honey?”

window rolls down slow

man leans over, grins

not riding the bus

they talk at the bus stop

smoking cigarettes

Don’t talk about them,

children with names like Justice,

names like Hope and Faith

They don’t exist here

man smiling midnight, “Get in…”

opens the car door

204, Carryings(2)

they sleep still knowing

the sound of their mothers’ voices

even in dreaming

205 – 211, Relations

Ms. Social Worker

comes without calling, knocks loud

we know what it means

learned to be ready

keep the floors cleaned with Pine Sol

quick, go change the baby

Mama’s hands shake now

clatter the dishes, nervous

moving like a squirrel

they took my brother

didn’t seem to care nothin’

‘bout his crying out

He reached back to us

straining against the holding

arms straight out, grasping

was late afternoon

with the sun gold orange through pines

light, a good feeling

Officer knew us,

played football back in highschool

Mama was pretty.

212 – 214, Enter

we were all there then

my brother playing with me

in the yard, dirty

We were throwing sticks

that landed to make dust rise

dog started barking

Fence gate latch clanking

world coming in, wearing pumps

carrying clipboards

215, Yardwork

You pull the grass rough

grimace and claw, rip, tear, pop

rhizomal network

216 – 222, Sowing

To plant nasturtium

bury the seeds deep to wait

away from all light

Soak them in water

if you want to play like God

mimic the spring rain

Notice, important

the way the hulls look like brains,

gonads, ovaries

You don’t know just yet

what color the blooms will be

only that they will come

at least you hope so

pushing finger, tunneling

making birth canals

A cluster, no rows

the edge of the fence, near gate

a constellation

stretch of sunny days

unfurl like sweet promises

of orange, maybe red

223 – 228, Inside

The heft of the door,

hard seats, a screen of faces.

Print the yellow pass.

Go up, air is warm…

stuffy indoors, fluorescent…

bang, metallic sound.

Looks in people’s eyes…

speech, smile, vocal timbre…words

like a preacher says.

“Then, dude, 45…”

*hand held like a loaded gun*

“Can’t say shit ‘bout it.”

“You leave a person…”

“Alone like that, after that…”

“Man, it is not good.”

Everyone is a child

When they speak of unfairness,

the anger of all.

229 – 237, Context

Automatic doors

smell of plastic petroleum

home goods product lines

box architecture

all right angles, empty space

mimics containers

“Fill ‘er up?” “Yes, sir.”

this product is known to cause

cancer, explosions

discharge static

before fueling, touch something

electricity

hovers and buzzes

tingling, lurch, bundle and build

a haze of lightning

tiny bolts surround

gather electrons, lose them

a frenzy dance

they say the earth hums

emits constant noise unheard

makes me want to cry

Stand in the center

city swirls roaring around

great din of commerce

rises like vapor

wave crossing wave, tangling

webs shudder on lines

229 – 235, Famine Lands

They named the disease

after the first child hunger

never enough milk

The river banks steam

swarming with flies, no water

the bodies of fish

Places where grass will grow

someday for a moment, two

a generation

There is no food here

There is nothing to eat here

We are starving here

Low wail across plains

for the sons and the daughters

the kin taken far

Taken for the tusks

Taken for the strength of backs

the cords of muscle

In the world they made

Every thing has a price

despite sacred life

236 – 245, Processions

Sovereign beings all

Every creature that lives

that has ever lived

Encased in plastic

perspectives of worth

mutable and made cheap

How can we forget

The soil itself is old bones

of trees, men, and birds?

no matter trying

we cannot manufacture

water with machines

So, wring your hands, sir

Under the table, listen

there is no way out

Take the direction

opposite to the road home

walk into the dark

…day before you left

did you kneel on the ground there?

Touch the dirt and weep?

“Don’t go!” I cry out,

“Stay where you are, stay at home!”

“…you will die here, too.”

The desert lands wait

for your footsteps

migration rhythms

Desperate parade

Stooped figures travel at night

Milky Way watching

246 – 250, Deals

The starched napkins lay

Crumpled doves dinner

Plucked quick by brown hands

On the southeast side

there is no light of day shining

through the small windows

The briefing took place

in a locked room, underground

monitors record

The world will never

be the same again, any day

any second passing

There are small stirrings

noticing the child’s eyes flash

saying: “You are bad.”

251 – 255, Flee

The cities grow, sprawl

Patterning metastasis

we cannot control

Men, names like punches

that you won’t ever know, speak

holler from corners

The wives and children

huddle in rooms warm, fetid

waiting for the word

Go, go now, time comes

Mother’s blue bowl broke, oh well

one of many things lost

In the mix with bones

of trees, men, and birds, find

small fragments of glass

256 – 262, Transition

Chemicals derived

Taxus brevifolia

Kill cells good and bad

bone marrow suffers

stops making blood, hair falls out

the Pacific Yew.

My father cries now

Talks about morphine, hospice

what will happen next.

My mother’s hands, birds

resting quiet and folded

at peace in her lap

“Please come tomorrow,”

“Come whenever you can,”

“Please visit with me.”

“I’ll miss you too much,”

she says this by the flowers,

blooming brief, brightly.

How can I help her

to know and to deep-believe:

the dead miss nothing?

263 – 272, Transition(2)

The end of day comes

with my mother looking far

down the field, away

Father talked to owls

Calling soft the other night

now I hear them, too

dying has a gaze

all it’s own, mortality

written in the eyes

Oval loops in dark

running fast to feel Alive

before the sunrise

The curve of the track

Catches footstep sounds, echoes

Following faintly

I saw this morning

a bright star beside the moon

never seen before

Remember the night

at the mouth of the canyon?

The galaxy edge?

We could only see

if we didn’t try too hard,

only with soft eyes

My second born child

asked me to watch the sunrise

Of course I said: “yes.”

We saw a raven

flying low, everything

suddenly golden

273 – 279, Evolute

when industry boomed,

were birds scared of factories?

smoke and noise, machines

we watched moths turn dark

to hide in soot-covered trees

why are we surprised?

Evolution day

every moment we change

die and born again

Wise apoptosis

billions dying all the time

learning from what was

slow down, speed up, flinch

the smell of cherry blossoms,

laboratories

Atlanta, Georgia:

mice were afraid of flowers

remember the shock

Fear imprints with ease

more than love, more than comfort

Cortisol teaches

280 – 289, Old Boys

Put on your holsters

you old boys, with wagging tongues

and secret meetings…

Swallow the bullets

you’ve been saving up for us

in the name of Father

The lead sits heavy

in your soft pink gut-belly

feels heavy like fear

Hear the sound they make,

breaking the water’s surface,

setting old ghosts free?

Don’t you burn no cross,

don’t you burn no church ‘round here.

I know who you are.

I came from you, man.

Your voice sounds like home,

the place that I left.

No white robe can hide

the truth of who you are now –

scared and pink, confused.

Dirty hands, salt earth

caught under your fingernails

the bone, the marrow

Heft that anchor weight,

the blood-swollen decks creaking

with the roll of waves.

Speak your daddy’s name.

Your great great grand? Say it, too.

Ask them to tell you.

290 – 298, Stupid ?’s

Atlanta, Georgia:

When a white woman passes

Men learned to look down

No need to say why,

they were bowing their heads, pray

to Emmett Till’s ghost

You want to know why?

Smart as all you people are?

Asking is insult.

It doesn’t take brains

to notice people dying

in the streets, shot down

Do you not see it?

This whole motherf*ckin’ place

built by slave labor

Wall Street worried now,

‘bout the collapse of what was

never theirs to own

energy it took

to build this country, this wealth

rape economy

glib motherf*ckers

eating their f*cking lunches

hands bloody as hell

How dare you ask why.

Incredulous. Idiots.

You really don’t know.

299 – 306, Multiplicities(2)

Lives no longer live.

Old cotton gathering dust.

The space breathes in, out.

A declaration:

“Anxiety opposite

of humility.”

dancing the slow dance,

the steady turning of Earth.

“Oh, how she lights up!”

A blur of grasses

Gives way to edge, the township

fences along roads

The world seemed insane,

but it didn’t bother me

more than a quiver.

Flash of moving screen,

brief and inspecific weight

shifting in my core.

Before the sun came up

the elder woman walked  slow,

a moving treadmill.

Watching the reel play

silent, muted,  on flat screen,

no certain futures.

307 – 311, Stagger

distance between worlds

one person to another

a moment passing

we adjust quickly

our adaptability

new realities

We forget the names

creatures extinct, this century

whole histories lost

rushing toward the new

we tear down what was sacred

spewing exhaust fumes

left alone too long

it all goes back to the wild

strong instincts of plants

312 – 321, No Frontera

All weariness gone

watch under ponderosa

hummingbird cloud sky

desert night is long

Factory Butte lit by moon

illuminated like day

equisetum lashes

legs scratched and burning red raw

prehistoric plants

how human to see

fire in the sky as God’s work,

something like magic

small rocks hold color

like the big hills and mesas

similarity

dead truck container

virtual reality

Arizona road

Ravens flash black wing

a suburbanite is stunned

valley of the gods

Canyons sleep sundown

Pinyon quiet windless night

the beautiful wild

The grass catches light

shining golden afternoon

rarely seen glowing

Quiet breathes easy

here in the canyon silence

just the sighing wind

322 – 329, Dead Lands

How many days in

the millions of years it took

to make the land here?

This place was on fire

seasons burning on and on

cold in the morning

western towns cluttered

with junk we thought we needed

rusting along roads

New side of town lights

pizza storage rusting tin

desert winds blow dust

Random road messages

give hope to dreamers, gamblers

Long shot, all is true

I caught signal here

under high point juniper

to listen, hear truth

She said on the phone,

“I can’t really be myself,

in this life, my life.”

Two ravens watch cars

guarding town or the highway

or nothing at all.

330 – 337, Parking Lots

We tend toward order

the implicit pull to lines

numbers, doors, closed, *lock*.

Man, geometry

hard edges everywhere

except reflected

Things we hold onto

Stored for a possible life

we need to let go

pull back your shoulders

throw your fist in living air

you are really free

Find moments of breath

to see the shape of wind waves

carve dances in trees

The gods sleep gape-mouthed

Crawl in like a dream, settle

as a prayer-thought

They will wake with you

in the turning of the winds

the spinning of time

when widening luck

and rich configurations

clear the space ahead

338 – 346, Moves

American road

The river down below us

flows quiet like it does

The brand new of youth

gave way to just skeletons

gasoline for sale

It wouldn’t take long

for all this to be swallowed

in green light, small trees

Things lose their shine quick

traffic traffic all day long

forgetting with ease

The names of these places

They are all made up by men

real names are secrets

Wind will tell you soft

the syllables of longing

to simply move free

There are parts of us

that never die, quiet down

“Listen, don’t forget!”

The people walked here

no choice but to leave it all

for this? Really? This?!

The grass doesn’t care

what it is called by humans

Fine blades sing real names

347 -349, Singularity

So alive to me.

Branch and bough, wind-blown and still

growing steady, slow.

In mute expansion

breathing as leaves in light breeze

What else is there now?

When sirens go by

oftenloudlyovertime

the forest exists.

350 – 352, Existing

The end is nameless

as is the mute beginning

space in wind, sunlight

The heat from buildings

shimmers across busy streets

making atmosphere

it doesn’t take faith

To know the stars are still there

even if unseen

353 – 361, Momentum

none of the girls talk

about wanting a new life

they work, no questions

At night, eyes are cast

look down at your hands, count deeds

adding up the costs

clock in, clock out, work

life is a factory now

all you’ll ever know

fingers are calloused

no softness there, at the tip

knuckles swell at night

on television

there is a bright-colored life

people laughing loud

make worthless products

your life spent earning wages

fingers twisted, sore

Give away talents

so someone else can profit

that’s the way it is

you will never see

such a vivid universe

oceans blue, sky blue

your world is dull grey

under haze of smog and ash

sun a silver disk

362 – 365, Ending

We will forget them.

The ones who came before us,

those who we destroyed.

The names we gave them

never spoke to who they were.

Names don’t tell stories.

All beings lifted…

Lord, let us be un-named now.

All beings seen whole.

The only knowing

life, death, continuation

the forever earth.