Corona Haiku III

Cloudless sunset sky,
Suggesting hope and questions -
Alone on a walk.

The Morning After

I woke up at 4:00 am today, unable unable to sleep. Rain fell outside. Was God crying? Or urinating on us all? How could a compassionate, just God sanction this election?  Most Christian Evangelicals voted for Trump, a complete betrayal of their religious beliefs. In their hypocritical hearts, they know Trump's religious gestures are mere theater. Never has it been more tempting to boldly proclaim the virtue of atheism.

A panic attack kept me awake. Vaguely, I recall the fear constrict my chest and knew instinctively that it was the same fear Trump's supporters felt. They surrendered to this animalistic drive, irrational by nature, at the polls yesterday. It was an epiphany: understanding this fear was a key to penetrating the dark, unspeakable mystery of our national political climate. How each of us responds to this fear individually will affect the course of our country, and in turn, the world.

I dressed for work as if for a funeral, all in gray - gray suit, gray tie, gray shirt - gray like the cloudy day that was dawning and still I moved about as if in a bad dream, slowly.  To deny reality is human. Uneducated racists do not have a monopoly on denial. But my clock kept ticking. Because I could accept the possibility that I would be late for work, I admitted I was awake. I had lived through what history will record as our worst election for all its resemblance to 1932 Germany.

Stepping outside, the fear subsided but still lingered. It cast a small shadow in me, like the shadow of leaves on pavement after the rain.  What I did with this fear was my own burden. So I secured the fear, until I could regain my reason, by using a talisman.

I dressed in mourning because something died last night, a grand experiment on tolerance unique in history.  But I placed a small, white handkerchief in my breast jacket pocket. The Christians - the authentic ones - have a story about Jesus who survived death and will one day return. Only their hope sustains that story. The thin, white line in my breast pocket was my own talisman of hope. Perhaps America will return from death some day. And perhaps how we vanquish the animal fear will usher the resurrection. But for today I just need to touch the white fabric often, to navigate the sadness until I can again think.

No Words

We cannot see our eyes

Waking in the morning light;

We cannot see our eyes

Sleeping in the darkest night. 

We cannot see the world

Walking and walking in it.

On the other side of stars

Lies our true sight.

Impression at Dusk

The sun had set without notice.
The winter dusk wrapped the street corner in purple dust.
At the bus stop, four people stood, swayed, waited,
Different shapes and colors, all wrapped in long coats,
In the noise of passing blue sedans and brown taxis
Rushing past the green light.
At the red light, the thrum of tense engines,
Waiting 60 seconds, then rushing,
Transporting drivers away,
To torments and delights,
Real and imagined.
.
.
What can I know?
What ought I to do?
For what may I hope?
.
.
The patter of expensive leather shoes
On the leaf-strewn, dusty pavement
Is scarcely heard
Before the rumble, screech, and gasp of the city bus,
Full of torpid, wool-covered strangers.
The bus blasts off, like an ugly starship
Into the gathering darkness.
Destination: the muzzled, muffled
Thoughts of aliens.

When the dust cloud settles,
A thin plume of exhaust curls around the empty bus stop,
A brief moment of silence - the sweetest sound - unnoticed,
Like the sunset,
And the sinking moral ground,
And the sense that we are bound
To see meaning in sound and color,
And in human horror,
After the bus has gone around
The bend.

I Don't Know

Is the science of the world
Compatible with
Our human experience?
I don't know.

Is the mind
Different from
The brain?
I don't know.

Is there
A thing called
Objective truth?
I don't know.

Is there an ultimate
Reality, and can we
Know it?
I don't know.

How many angels
Can dance
On a dying red rose?
I don't know.

Can you count
Your lovers
On you fingers and toes?
I don't know.

Can you tell me
A secret
That nobody knows?
I don't know.

Do you know
What becomes
Of a child as he grows?
I don't know.

Do your answers
Depend on where
The wind blows?
I don't know.

Who knows?

The Fortune Teller

I'm sorry.
I don't believe
That what you do is true.

That is what
I told the Fortune Teller
On a warm city night
As she stood upon the corner
In the shadow of the lights.

But it is true - a truth
As strange as it is old;
You will believe
If you are told.

Listen. She said:

You are the Unbeliever,
Destroyer of Worlds.
With your Mind of Doubt,
Dragons you will slay,
Old ghosts rout out.

With doubt clear as day,
Charlatans you'll banish.
Priests here will not stay
And mysteries will vanish.

But beware the magic of negation.
In the fusty superstition
Lies the bedrock of our nation.

Though you lead the modern man,
An army of numbers and scales,
You will find that all your plans
Lack the passion of mythic tales.

So do not presume to find me
Alone in the street forlorn,
For my heart mirrors the stars -
The harbor of love
Before Mind was born.

Descartes Dreams

I have learned
In my 400 years
The truth of what many do fear –
That we all breathe alone.

Reality is undeniably
Individual.

For no one can dream your dreams.
No one can feel your fear,
Or your wounded heart,
Or see through your eyes
The light in the skies
On your last fine day.

And yet I have seen
In my 400 years
A truth proud men won’t hear –
That we cannot live alone.

Human life is, quite reliably,
Tribal.

For a child needs his parents in stages.
Industry fails without wages.
And empires come and go
Only through armies of men
That kings may need though never know.

Now, I look on in sadness
At a history spawned by a madness
That ever I dared to conceive:
I think therefore I am,
Failing in truth to perceive
That the mind needs the help
Of the hand
Of the tender mother.

She showed me the simplest truth:
That we all, every day, need each other.

The Death of Philosophy

If I say that my beliefs
Are a product
Of my country,
Of my epoch,

Then am I
Caught in that sly
Trap of History
With no words to deny –

For the Cage that falls
Is the Cage of Language.

My belief in relativity
Is relative to itself.
Devoid, perhaps, of authenticity,
It begins to gnaw upon itself.

The Invisible Man
Imagines the color of his eyes.
But the mirror shows nothing;
Nothing until he dies.

Who am I when I sleep?
Who am I when I dream?
Beliefs are fish that leap
In a transparent mental stream.

Happily I fish,
In my country, in my time.
For the world, by turns, shall fade
Through my ignorance sublime.

Postmodern Mood

The Modern derides
The Enlightment,
Which, in turn,
Derides the Medieval.

I'd rather affect
The Postmodern:
It thinks the derision
The evil.

Delirium

Never waste a good delirium,
A time when Up is Down.

You
Move your
Mouth all Around
Open shut –
To say nothing;
A delirium nothing,
Surpassing sweet – unlike
The plodding words –

The stumbling weight of all those years . . .

There was a farmer had a dog,
And Bingo was his name-o.
I pledge allegiance to the flag.
The square root of sixteen is four.
Our Father who art in Heaven,
Hallowed be Thy Name.
Dad, I won the game!
Paris is the capital of France.
Can I have this dance?
Buy now: Operators are standing by!
That sissy boy; he couldn’t hurt a fly.
The square root of four is two.
Mark my words:
One day you’ll see. They’ll all see.
Darling, it’s so good to see you.
What is the square root of two?
I’m sorry, Ma’am,
There was nothing we could do.

And when the fever cools, as it will do,
And up is up and down is down again,
You see the chance is gone to start anew –
As reason, restored, confounds the brain.

The Temple

The Body is the Temple
Wherein the Ritual that is Life
Is conducted in Honor of the God
That is Spirit, our True Identity.

But my Temple has been defiled.
The Moneylenders and the Merchants have had their long days
Amassing coffers of coins in their Bazaars. Now the refuse remains,
Empty stalls and silent signs advertising baubles.

Prostitutes still lurk in dark corners.
Everywhere the floor is spotted with the excrement
Of the animals that were sold. A pair of dirty Drunkards is fighting
Over the last bottle of Wine sold in the days of the Bazaar.

And the God of the Temple is angry
That the Body has been defiled.
Spirit has sent its only begotten son, the Mind,
To make the Temple clean.

Mind will sweep the Temple,
Chase away the Prostitutes and Drunkards.
And one day the Temple will be made holy
For Spirit again to dwell therein.

And is your own Temple clean?
Perhaps your Mind has cleared the waste.
Perhaps some offal yet remains,
Or a Thief dwelling in hiding.

But if indeed your Temple
Is made clean and holy
And the great Ritual is conducted
All the days and nights in the Hallowed Hall,
Where then has your God gone?

By the light of the stars
My God meets your God,
And together they walk,
Past the sleeping Thieves and Drunkards,
Beyond the Temples,
In the grove beneath the hills.