WHO TAUGHT WHO WHAT
The eagle taught the rabbit
how to keep out of sight.
The bear taught the trout
how to slip away.
The elephant taught its mahout
how to scrub its back.
The dwarf taught the growing boy
how to look tall.
The window taught the wall
how to be more transparent.
The floor taught the roof
how to be more down to earth.
The water taught the wine
how to be always clear-headed.
The wine taught the water
how to throw off all restraints.
The earth taught the blind man
how to see with his feet.
The wind taught the toupee
how to be more truthful.
The rainbow taught our hearts
how to expect more of the unseen.
The bridge taught the river
how to overcome obstacles.
The mule taught the townspeople
how to put up with its braying.
The lovers taught each other
how to accept each other's faults.
Darkness taught daylight
how to wait until it's time.
The body taught the soul
not to rely on it forever.
11/20
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IF I TOLD
YOU
If I told you God was a black beetle
looking down at us from a glassy horizon,
or a white shirt freshly pressed, left nonchalantly
on the back of our chair,
if I said God was a volcanic rush in a column
of incandescence, bright orange,
giant vertical blast of light from one spot
in the middle of the earth,
if I said God sat in a billion veils on a
chair that melts and unmelts each second,
or the fuel of lightning and breath sufficient for
tiny gnats as well as fat potentates,
if I said God was a brown-skinned woman sitting
alone in a narrow chamber,
or a speaking rod someplace in the desert, flung
on the ground amidst miles of sand,
if I said God rose up from the bottom of the sea, waves
recoiling from the girth of
His shoulders,
a stone slowly rolling from the top of a mountain,
mossless, noiseless, toward the village below,
the air turned black in the middle of day,
the power of catastrophe where everyone's killed,
a lacy blue wildflower on a cliff on Mt. Everest,
a green smoke emitted from a cave in Cathay,
if I told you God was a human-faced beast
roaming invisibly from city to city
then would you believe? Would the
hairs on your neck bristle, your
throat go dry, your heart thump
audibly?
Ah, drunken friends, that would be too easy!
God's none of these:
a blast of goodness, a
thunderous voice,
an inner impression of monumentality,
a vague sensation, an inkling of grandeur,
a benevolent despot who
distributes fate like
marked playing cards or ominous dominos
clacking.
After miles of words trying to define God,
the best we can do is just keep silent.
Stand still in a doorway, stay
calm in a lightning flash.
Lie on our beds and listen to a clock tick.
Sit and face miles and miles of blank wall.
Drink cold water direct from a spring.
But that's still not it!
12/3
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HORSE
"Bring me my horse!"
"Father, you have no horse.
We sold it to pay for your funeral.
Besides, we couldn't get it up the
stairs five flights."
"Then bring me my transistor radio."
"Father, that too is gone. We
had to buy food for your
last days on earth. We had to buy
medicines."
"The days are long, the winds are
strong. My own father's
extending his hand. Through
traffic noise and rock'n'roll
my ancestors are extending
their hands."
"Father, the room is dark
and the gypsies have died.
Here's garlic and bright cloth,
here's a clock with its
hands torn off, and the
plastic melted."
"Bring me the carton of snapshots.
I want to gaze at them
one last time, and
say goodbye."
"They too are gone, when the
house burned down."
"Then bring me my wife. I'll
look on her sweet face again."
"Ah, dear father, she left us last year,
and waits on the other side of the
river for you, all dressed in
white, standing above black water."
"Is there nothing at all to bring your father,
is the world so poor and I so poor
there's nothing at all to bring?"
"We brought it all, and it was
nothing. All webs, and cobwebs,
entangled in webs. What you want now,
father, is unentangled
and free."
"Then bring me your faces, one by one, to
kiss goodbye."
"Here, dear father, is a forehead,
here a warm cheek. Your lips are
cold, father, the room is dark."
"Bring me my horse. With the golden
saddle. I will
ride it now."
"Here's your horse, dear father.
Here's your horse."
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