Bone Music

1

Last night dinner

with four couples

points out the difficulties in living together

and apart.

                Even the

son of a wealthy doctor, disdainful of

inebriates more artificial than the moon,

full, full of joy for humanity

and life

            suffers deepening depressions

like the dark outside a lamplight.

It was a good restaurant

expensive but comfortable

in the alternate life-style way

the cook was a hairy

talented clown

and we clowned though beneath each

facade

was turmoil and decay.

                                  We lay

beside each other like bones

in a boneyard

and find joy (I do anyway)

in the bone dance

to bone music.

                     

2

Without a thought for slash fuel

or deer, the mist

deepens and deteriorates upon

the mountain. The mountain

completely unaware

of its greenness. The ice

is centuries old.

A red-tailed hawk

floats above the unit

observes what small mammals, birds

are in the clearcut

Awaits

the moment

to strike

or fades away almost

silent as the mist. I dream

of it, though I am awake

among my co-workers, the bullet

system zinging cut logs down

to the road, firewood.

3

Pardon

me you mountains

for coming to the edge

without mystical knowledge

or belief, only love and wrinkled

eyes for the women and men who

light the fires and wield the chain saws,

drive the cat, swing the ax, I

completely laugh among them like a god

yes, although my face is a mask of hate

and pain, what god does not come to this field

of flowers out of fear and confusion and chains

product of the hot anvil and hot engine

of human history.

This duality, these arm-breaking dualities

this volcanic eruption erupting from some

confluence of beheaded forces, one

powerful with eternity, one

blinding with intensity, meet

and in the middle is me

like a husband and wife fighting

like two dogs fighting but not biting hard

life bests my best synthesis of it

and I begin to pray, hard to believe
I kneel woefully and pray
for a happy combination
of sun and mist
and sometimes man’s destruction.