NEXT PAGEAFTER READING A VERSE FROM THE HOLY QURAN, HUITZILOPOCHTLI, IN THE AUTUMN LIGHT EXPLAINS TO HIS YOUNG SCRIBES THE OVERWHELMING EVENT
It's in amazement I write to tell you
about space, not where the stars dwell
But rather where we live among the tall pine, sycamore and dogwood.
I can never tell you how to feel-its up to you to notice
The mad look in my eyes the television gave me, the look
I use to greet the businessmen and bureaucrats in hell.
And about the bombing: the souls who roasted
Will not dwell in my little heaven but will rest
On calm blue sheets, loved and nourished by coyote's own great teats!
You see, not believing now is
worse.
The demons you'll have to defeat on your inward journey
Are like so many little yellow hornets buzzing about
Window screens in summer, angry but looking
For anything sweet, any way out--in the wild fields
Outside groaning, in the ash-cans and offices roaming.
Every morning, you see, I fuck a wild woman while roses
Swirl around her head: it's then I hear the live oak
Singing in winter as her breath becomes mine--
O that we were as careless as the trees
To leave our clothing behind.
The overwhelming event asks us
to reconsider
The teleological message written into its occurrence:
There's a prayer book with all our names in it somewhere,
The hymns we know written down neatly in pencil
By the original hand that guided Lot away from Sodom.
So here we are in this room without windows,
The insects going mad. If only we could break
Into little groups to find our own truth, the
Womb's truth, the Lamb's truth. Even the truth
Of some wounded blackboard from another century
That never slips in its dusty conveyance of order to you or me.