The Dolphin Cry Of Immersion

- for my brother on his sixtieth birthday 1 I get up in the morning, set my feet walking Walking under palm trees in gray light of dawn Walking across a parking lot empty of cars To stand at a counter, and dig in my pocket To get my morning cup of dark water My portion of musings, my cup of brack. I know it does me no good, the doctors have told me, This brew from the pith of woody berries, Delivered to us by need of toiling campesinos农夫 From a place too fertile with vegetable alkaloids. My senses do not rule me, and this brack has nothing to recommend it, Yet I keep drinking, for in it I have steeped associations And the heat is not just wattage from a Bunn-o-Matic. I defy time with these bitter infusions Stretching cup by cup though twenty years of mornings, In them I have steeped thought-trains ready to be reclaimed And that unending, unfinished conversation That threw itself into this and other futures From our white-tiled, late-night academy. The coffee at that all-night diner was better than it had to be, None better since, not in cafes with their designer roasts, Just as our talk was more than information exchange, Because that is how people's voices grow and flower, Just as a flower is more gorgeous than it needs to be To be a landing pad for any honeybee. 2 You have seen the city nestle in an estuary Reaching its tendrils into river valleys, You have seen the city splayed on an open plain Gnawing at its own empty places And reaching needy arms into the countryside. A great rescue operation pours into the city, Trains arrive every day loaded with grain; You have seen the city under constant rescue, An airlift of crates descending from the sky, And arteries choked with what they move. The countryside is laid out all in rows Its fruits are thrown onto conveyor belts. The countryside is scraped, so the city must cough, The city groans under weight of its delivery; Such brutal rescue does not operate on gratitude, We conform to its character, our faces grow hog-jowled Prescriptions are issued from all sides- overdone. You go out and meet the rescue, to make it less deformed, Though weighed down, you meet it with your heart. The countryside is spread out like a garden. You take what has heart, which is simply enough The empty part of your spoon is not just a spoon. You meet things in the nowhere they come from, Leaving your weighed-down parts behind, Where tools won't reach, you open your hand. The land still puts forth its gatherers of light, Where desires spread like petals, you are enthroned. You go out to rescue the rescue, leaving burdens behind, The landscape is spreading out like a great lung. 3 A child near the edge sends a shiver through you The pang of someone's danger is your humanity; The clock creeping up on your mate weighs upon you, And you also are a child, sitting next to an edge, Feeling fatigue in the evening, you know the end of all roads. In these times, our adventure is fragile and perilous, To keep a stake in things, we play along with blind power. Sit within the wisdom of that sigh, the sweet human ache, Piercing distractions to bring news from a great heart. 4 May the bedbugs of insomnia turn to fireflies on a midsummer night; May light-circles of fatigue become Miro paintings behind your eyes; Page after page, may your private litany go up in True Fire; May Buddha Washing Festival be held inside your body with gold light; May that sky of yours be carried into dark corners of life; May your nimbus of gargantuan kindness be seen by cold eyes; May your jewel be set against a backdrop of more than black velvet; May your coherent ripple-pattern propagate in rivers of all magnitude; May your furthering impress re-gather in a semblance of your nature. 5 Improvisation is the permanent art No jazz is ever wasted Mind is a wick with the flame burning off Sending light on an unending journey Pushing to the lonely edge Always adding more human meaning to Heaven. 6 For how long have clouds been poised above our roof? Before we raised our eyes these piles of vapor had arrived. Now they build in massed shapes, evolve into towers, They hang in air like incomplete Mt. Rushmores. While cicadas sear the day with metallic tongue We tire of dust stealing green juice from hedges And scan the clouds for a tinge of dark portent. Yet as sure as winds are water-wheels of the sky They will not carry every burden beyond us. Finally with a long sigh, the sky lets go of the rain, The cloud-bottom gathers rain from higher in the sky, The cloud-bottom lets go of everything, Along with the parched ground we drink it all in.