ANXIETY-OF-BEING-ONLY
(BEING AND NATURE)

nighttime island
falling down tenements 
six or seven me's
each with a different-colored wrong choice
already worrying about
the question of cause-and-effect
attracting sightseers
stumbling over barns and totality
false neodesha-stragglers
giving their power to replication
prematurely emerging single file from patriarchal tombs
they say it’s cold when it’s hot
the deserted castle on a cliff
the isolated sunlight
goes up to it from milky lightness
placid and forgotten
inexplicable, self-sufficient
as risky as willow trees on a riverbank
gone before their time
an uninterrupted moan
digs a trench into a grassy hill
inhabited only by a few rabbits
i’ve attempted to find that place again 
inadvertently covered up
in the world's longest-running espresso-maker contest
it has to be here somewhere
the wheat fields never lie

WORLD SEQUOIA ACTION COALITION

 "I stopped to pick up a beautiful vessel.
It was full of scorpions;"-Joel Felix

the stone house among the trees
what are the past events
who can predict the future
what have we gained
who lives here as undisturbed
as a flock of teal on icy waters
always moving but always the same
beneath dark fast-rolling clouds
a surveyor notes an invisible content
the reassuring lesson of abstinence
about the size of a coffee-grinder
that has caused a generation to stumble
will we ever be more than nothing
entities made out of air
pillagers of our own contentment
rendering spirituality unworthy
poisoning ourselves with lead oxide
owls answer gently "you need to do more"
speaking an unacceptable language
a language no one understands
a language of kerosene lamps
a language that cannot disregard the whole
different from that described by a row of same numbers
a language that contains difficult terms
capable of a surprising solemnity
as if no one owns the land
i wasn't going that way in any case
i've got to get away from here