Prophets

Red Cassandras of the season stand alone
but will not stop foretelling.
Worse, they gain believers, till the roads are mad
with fleeing followers in millions
who leave the trees forsaken. 

September 26 2014

The Revolution: Its Origin and Growth

Although its roots probably reach much farther back, the revolution can be said to have begun in earnest in the early years of the 21st century. Like many revolutions, it probably started so quietly that no one was at first aware of what was happening. Once it reached a critical point, however, it quickly "went viral," as the saying was at that period.

The first manifestation of the movement was--not surprisingly, given the level of technology then extant--in video footage produced by amateurs. Two main groups produced these videos:

• Terrorist groups, notably Al Qaeda and ISIS, published videos, often horrific in nature, whose purpose was to encourage movement members or to document acts of extreme violence, with the aim of creating fear and showing defiance toward enemy regimes such as the old United States of America.
• At the same time, perhaps as an unconscious response to terrorist videos, individuals around the world began publishing optimistic videos in such venues as Facebook, a popular "social networking" application of the time. These videos typically portrayed people performing spontaneous acts of kindness for other people or animals, or giving striking artistic performances.

It is this latter group that was key to the revolution. Motivated by the increasingly violent nature of terrorist videos (and actual acts), a surge of optimist videos appeared in a short time, and the movement quickly evolved into a kind of competition, in which participants vied to show ever more striking instances of positive human behaviors. This competition naturally depended on the actual performance of positive acts. What began as more or less accidental capture of good deeds on video rapidly became an active search for such deeds, and by natural extension, the deliberate performance of good deeds for the purpose of recording them.

Thus, in a short time, kindness and charity became highly desirable behaviors. While at first many people were motivated primarily by a desire for fame or praise, it was not long before the inherent pleasure of altruism became the major stimulus. Under that guiding force, what began as an "internet" phenomenon spread to other areas of life. No longer was it necessary to receive recognition for good deeds; much as an athlete experiences an endorphin thrill, individuals began to experience what we know today as the uprush, and did more good deeds to experience it again.

This phenomenon did not, of course, immediately lead to the disappearance of terrorism, or of negative impulses such as hatred, contempt, or selfishness. Rather, terrorists found their base of adherents gradually eroding away, as more and more individuals were influenced by the example of others to replace the ideology of fundamentalism with positivism. Similarly, individuals who engaged in destructive behaviors found their moral base weakened and were led, almost despite themselves, to embrace the Golden Rule.

It may seem strange, even disconcerting, to think that the philosophy now so central to our planetary cultures had its origin in a meme that could easily have passed away like so many others before and since, and whose existence depended on a passing technology that is all but forgotten today. But after all, it is not so surprising, when we reflect that this meme was a true and unfiltered expression of the noblest aspect of our humanity.  To a global society in desperate need of healing, it was the unexpected medicine from within that allowed humanity to finally cure itself.

September 17 2014

Evangelical

The street is possessed by heathen scents.
We can't walk up or down it.
Always he's a missionary there,
but his howling zealotry alienates
any possible converts
to his way of eating.

September 16 2014

Empty

All day long the skies were so empty.
I hurried home to you under them
at a strange and early hour,
looking up through the windshield
at nothing, which had never before
and has never since
seemed so full
of everything.

September 12 2014

Arriving

Odd, that sensation of the coming season.
Like it or not, the senses thrill.
The trees are chattering again;
memory, as always, supplants the present;
and the same blue sky is different.
A thought about picking apples has arrived.

September 8 2014

Leaving II

When she pours out her abundance
down the living lines of branches
in such floods of fruit,
I can almost forgive her
for leaving.

September 6 2014

Leaving

I found the first of the season's leaving
on the seat of the car
whose windows I had forgotten to close:
One red drop.
Thank God it isn't winter.

August 28 2014

Comfort in Tiles

I was in a state contiguous to wakefulness
far longer than I really understood.
The science test seemed mostly made of wood
I had mismeasured,
and I had no ruler to help me with the answers.
Long after I should have 
I staggered from my bed to find relief
(ha ha)
in the lighted island bathroom
where the tiles were reassuring.
We are so solid, they said;
you don't need to fear those phantoms.
Take Tylenol. Soon you will sleep
and the test will be taken by someone else--
more competent, perhaps, but you at least
will be in dark, and happy.

August 23 2014

Revolution

The hips are red as new blood on the thorny branch.
The leaves show their silver armor to the harrying wind.
This morning: Canada geese, on maneuvers.
The heat maintains its hostile occupation,
but drumming rain beats a call to independence.
Mutinous rumbles --
rumble


    rumble
rumble
-- precede the fall of Summer
and the ragtag rise of Fall.

August 18 2014

Puppet

If I'm a puppet
dancing on strings that I hold,
at least it's my show.

August 8 2014

Lo, I Am Given

Lo, I am given a family,
and like a cup it holds me,
uplifting and forgiving me,
and like a cup I lift it up,
for giving me this family
is like a cup running over.

August 5 2014

Where the Rain Had Gone

Yes, I wanted to understand
where the rain had gone.
Yes. Everything seemed so real:
Bumpers on cars, expected emails,
and mowers needing gas and walking.
No respite; no empty spaces for my soul to fill.
Precipitation's a cliche; okay,
but anything, just anything, 
easier than sunlight,
quiet as a stain,
transient but leaving something,
something to retain.

July 27 2014

Found Composition: Concrete and Paint II

Found Composition: Concrete and Paint

Stacking Stones

They began to see the value 
of stacking stones.
In places other than the malls
I noticed,
here and there, 
they began to build them
in yards
and at the ends of driveways.
Small towers,
of minimal pretension,
five or six or seven
high;
steady,
silent,
and meditative.
Through me there is a line, they say,
from earth's core to the stars,
and along it we are strung,
like beads on gravity's pendant.
You do not need to climb
or to descend.
Only witness.
Only feel our kinship.
Only contemplate.

July 13 2014

Last Night's

Last night's was about writing a poem at last.
It was so familiar:
repeating the lines to myself till I could find
a pen and a piece of paper. 
But along with it was knowing I had left 
my dog loose on the street 
at the foot of the sloping yard, 
beyond which stood the trees;
and I am sorry to say that I let him wait
till I had finished writing. Then,
containing panic, I called for him,
louder than I can really shout
until finally I found him in the house
sleeping under the laundry.
I was so relieved to have him back;
but this morning, of course,
I can no longer remember the poem.

July 13 2014

Hours

No need for dread;
the clock is by the bed
and it counts the quiet hours.
The dark is of a piece
with peace, a blessing and release
from daytime's brutal power,
and in it my rescued respiration's deep:
breathe in silence,
breathe out sleep.

June 19 2014

Unprovable and Intractable Hypotheses

The following is an incomplete list.

• Time loops occur with great frequency. A time loop is an phenomenon in which the "forward" flow of time and events is interrupted and restarts at an "earlier" point. Time loops are undetectable because the "original" event stream is overwritten by the the second event stream.
• Reality is digital. Everything we can detect exists in bits, not in an unbroken continuum. We cannot perceive the digital nature of our reality because we are confined to it. Likewise, we cannot detect the larger reality in which our local reality bits exist.
• There is only one consciousness in the universe. It jumps from one "conscious" organism, such as a human or a dog, to the next at unimaginably great speed, animating each organism and its thoughts, emotions, and memories. Each organism is animated so frequently that individuals perceive no interruption in the behavior of other organisms. No objective means exist for detecting the existence of a consciousness, making this hypothesis extremely difficult to test. We cannot prove or disprove that the process applies to us, because by definition we have no awareness during the instants when we are not animated. However, a breakdown in the consciousness switching process might afford proof, by allowing the detection of otherwise unexplainable lapses of consciousness in individuals other than ourselves.
• God does not exist. Conceivably provable, but requires elimination of every possible locus in which God might exist.
• God exists. Not inherently unprovable, but no universally accepted proof has yet been advanced.

June 11 2014

The Lighthouse

I have now become A. A. Milne.

Shall we climb the lighthouse
And look down
At all the tiny people going
Round the tiny town?
You can spy the ice cream man;
I will guard the railing;
Out upon the ocean
We will see the boats a-sailing.

June 1 2014

Free Time

Free from the tyranny of license plates
and their nagging need to be decoded,
free from all things I must do until I get them right,
I will let my gaze lie idle on the wave
before me and the next one too,
watching only for the gleaming arc of dolphins
and the military fly-bys of the serious pelicans
cruising down the valleys of the sea.

May 23 2014

Possibilities

So grateful
for every night in which
the air is to my skin like nothing
or the softest invitation
to wear my jacket open
and let the leash make an idle J
while the dog explores his possibilities
written on the lamp-lit street.

May 3 2014

Budding

Budding is the bated breath,
the wait you want extended
so that flowers will be always still to come.
Once the blooms have broken out
you know their falling follows,
and no serene remembering
that spring will come again can render
ending this beginning any sweeter.

April 26 2014

Home Harbor

Who knows, we might run without heartache down
the final reach of this cruise;
might anchor without incident at our home harbor,
and ferry ashore to look up old friends.
Ship decommissioned, or laid up in drydock,
we might walk the sand of our last retirement
at the water, not on it,
but where we can see its blue remembrance
and hear the echoes of its ancient history
bringing back the images without injury
of storms survived and dreary days
of labor passed, hands overboard, the groundings;
and all at last comprehended,
stowed where they belong,
forgiven and forgiving
as we fall asleep at night.

April 9 2014

Expectant

Here sits the dog, expectant,
tail ablur, eyes moist with hope.
Who would not give such a friend
his biscuit?

April 5 2014

At Five O'Clock

At five o'clock
I love the fog
that floats inside
the neck 
of my bottle
of beer.

March 14 2014