WE ARE THE PROGENY OF THE BIG BANG

I'm no comet, no constellation,
just a telescope on our sky,
observatory of meteors
and moonly progress.

I see we are not ourselves only
but also parallels and echoes
of the ones who came before.

Not only our own singularities,
but also we are in part products
of our planet's climes, times,
crimes. Properties of
the universal particles.

The passed is my present,
given for your predictions,
as light is the shadow
of infinity's origin.


SUNSHINE PACT

Love did survive the midnights
though when we swore each other
our love would last forever
we meant mainly in sunlight.

But at last it was the fire
that burned us into liars.



SOME FOUR OR FIVE DESCENTS SINCE

Natural selection's neutral
in terms of progress and morals.
Random goes unpredictable--
noble or reprehensible.
Once, in effect, we had five hands--
two top, two down, and one behind.
We lost our old prehensile tails--
the cost of opposable thumbs.
We got better, sensible brains
by trading touch for cranium.


THAT ANCIENT GENTRIFICATION

Your good neighborhood is rezoned.
The lawns have given way to bones,
mausoleums of expired hours,
and dank granite-dungeoned towers.
After your last mortgage was paid
the real estate mortician made
that inevitable deal: Trade
your habit-practiced house of flesh
for a dormitory of death. 


AMPHIBIANS

Part of us is feather,
another is anvil.
As reptiles of reason
and fishes of passion
we are amphibians
that define the betweens,
a muddle of middles
among brakes and throttles.
And the trajectories
of our biographies
trace patterns of lurches
and runs and reverses
and rises and lunges
and ripraps and wrenches
and pauses and passes
and misses and catches.
Ah! Those rubs and doublings.


CORRECT ATTRIBUTION

The thrust, parry, and riposte
are claimed by the saber,
yet, the point, the edge, the hilt
imply a duelist.

As though there were no poet,
the pen boasts the epic;
and the hammer, the palace
as though no architect.

So do not infer agents
are the inspiration.