Before time began, we were ordered
but not yet delivered—the point of
sale hot and hairy with the friction
of moving bodies through space.
One “day at a time” was created by
faraway forces, all in perfect harmony
with a divine plan—the mystery impossible
to penetrate, the more pondered,
the more lost in that… space…
Truth comes to us late in life, sometimes
after horrible events, always when
we least expect
After the conditioner wears out,
blood instead of shampoo on the
bathroom floor, vomited mess.
We were sure war was good and manly.
We were sure men should be strong.
We were sure sports were good to play.
We were so sure college was important.
July 4th exploded in our face.
We saw the light, when we read a
real deed to the land to find it more
native than white—to have stolen
property a curse on everything in
civilization we do.
Perhaps that is why we, not the
native people, so often curse, cuss
and spite our walk on concrete.
***
Turn around. Look back, when it’s
safe, tell the truth; start with strangers
if you must, and swim toward the next
real thing, peace of mind the chime on
fourteen bells of alarm so alarming
you’d rather silence it than tend to the
fire burning all around you.
Burning earth, driving cars, helicopters
playing more war in my “city” stolen
because our British forefathers thought
it the only way to live.
A bible? A bound set of papers with ink
on them?
Could it ever compare to the waterfall?
The river? The mountains, the valleys
of gold in morning’s light, saunas for the
sun if the desert catches it just right,
lick it up bright—
I call this life crazy, but I’ll ‘til the wheels
come off live it, it’s my right.
To swing around the sun a hundred times
a goal of sum;
Dogs and cats more honest in fifteen,
some birds to sixty, disease a myth of
the rich, while the poor continue as
the prophet said, blessed with the meek
The sorrowful now under feet with a key
to heaven easily won, take a peak.
Thunder to roll, God by another name as sweet,
this is or is not a game played by at least
some far off unfathomable beings.
Maybe green, blue, fat or small, maybe
E.T.
The native chiefs knew, but many of
us just wanted to thump our book;
both point to the Great Mystery.
Bill Watkins, Traveling Poet 