SAVING IT
Some think the world can be saved by love
some think it can be saved by intelligence
It is the old quarrel of the heart and the head
each of which would be dead
without its rival and although
I am of those who doubt it can be saved
too many people greedy too many in the kind of pain
that perpetuates itself generation after generation
who cannot save themselves from the chokehold
of anger or from chasing oblivion
long enough to do the world any good
some say that is what bodhisattvas are for
but regarding tikkun olam, I hear the rabbis say
It is not incumbent on you to finish the task
neither are you free to give it up
IS THIS REAL
Let me see, is this real
Let me see, is this real
Let me see, is this real
This life I am living.
—Navajo prayer
Nose in that book/ white lightning but/ no eagle no galloping horse/ I was twenty
lacking enough silence/ no spacious cactus vista/ nevertheless yes yes
white lightning this question ozone year chases year
wishing I had a tribe to tell me the answer
no answer/ asking myself
no answer/ asking God
asking in my pajamas aching/ asking in my silks lifting the cocktail
asking sidewalk sycamore is this real/ men foraging in wastebaskets
is this real the suffering and anger in city air thickening every year
is it real my white apartment/ is it real my sixty year marriage
asking if the sky’s headscarf is real if the Hudson sturgeon a highway away is real
is this real my life/ fool teacher poet/ mother lover wife/ tulip now wilting
Is this real/ now mask and distance/ it is my life/ let me see
before death gathers me please let me finally see