Change

            I am feeling the shock of fast change. How to cope with it is of course the question. Listen to Beethoven through the neighbor's window? Look up from the page? Appreciate doves even though they are so numerous? I seem to have limitless choices although this cannot be true. Could I have become a computer specialist? Sure! How to remain still in the ever-maddening mandala. To remain still on the outer edge of the wheel is to ride laughingly and pluck at the gold key. I force myself down into the craw of the black vortex New York until I feel the strong oscillations gather rhythm and expel me or accept me.

            What do I find within the black electric walls of this unique vortex? I find there is more space between people than I'd ever dared to hope. That my efforts are unnecessary and hopeless. I cancel my subscriptions and stop eating. I embrace wild roots and run through streets with arm around my girl.

                                        *                                  *                                  *

What is important.

That question.

I part my lips in the middle

      and blow

eat corn chips, dipsy doodles

make love, eat grapes.

                                In their mere chronology

events have no relation. How was making love

different from eating grapes. Differentiation

is essential to bring order from chaos. The chaos

is the accelerated change created by our own species

whose consummations have a quantum effect

      on the environment.

                                    But the chaos

existed long before, and long after us

in both more serene and violent forms.

Again a duality, but here's why.

                                             For

each duality may then be said to be in a dual

relationship with another duality, forming

cubes.

           These cubes are difficult to join

with other cubes, unless first they are

somewhat melted.

                           We were traveling among

these cubes, maneuvering

through a static array of equidistant points

but finding it impossible to avoid striking them.

So why the difficulty adapting. Because no species

before us had to adapt to its own effects upon

environment? No, every species must

but our adaptations (of the world) are so successful

(such fabrications!) One green, one brown

                        Two dead leaves

                              sleep-touching

                                     Then a breeze!

                                        *                                  *                                   *

                         Loveliness and loneliness

                                these periodic

                                     auras

                                             they sleep apart/together

surrender to greater force, power, strength

        whatever it is called, the clog of heels

                 upstairs to the door, turning of

                          the key, the taking out of the

                                   garbage down below, car

                                            starting, placed in

                                                            gear, cat

                                                                     meowing

anyway, for myself, personally, speaking only

        for myself, because although the Parks

                 Department rakes the leaves as it

                          did last autumn, to keep them

                                   from clogging the sewer system,

                                            I am in a heightened

                                                            state of vibration

                                                                     Quivering

like a long steel pipe banged hard against an

        iron beam. The hard hat feels it in

                 his hand (on the gears) but

                          great buildings are built that

                                   nature destroys in time

                                            with a little wind

                                                            water, fire

air, you glide down through the limpid air

        toward the ninety-seven story abandoned structure

                 remnant of an earlier civilization

                          abandoned but not yet entirely

                                   swept away in slow waves

                                            of change.