As I awaken to this atypically gray day,
I wonder about too many things
to sort into neat little packages of script;
there is chaos, to be sure—
though is it me?
Or have these conditions always persisted,
unperturbed by human minds
that never thought to record them?
We live in magic,
where it’s easy to wonder
whether a thing exists because we regard it,
or because it is fixed—temporarily—
into changing landscapes,
though even those are constantly in flux.
Rivers rise and roil,
casting mammoth chunks
of steel and asphalt from bridges built
decades ago.
When forces move beyond us,
these human-created appendages
become toothpick structures,
perched briefly in pristine places,
inviting more settlers
who are no match, in the balance,
for unpredictably rising waters.
Does beauty exist because we behold it?
If there were no highways,
would the true tenders of wild landscapes
be raptors and bears,
with migrant tribes
the only observers of our kind—
noticing patterns, not recording them,
but sharing what they know
with visitors,
with relations?
We wonder in our time
why so many lived in movable colonies,
though perhaps it makes more sense now,
as we come to realize
nothing is forever,
nothing stable or static.
A friend rushes to her husband’s bedside
in a distant land.
Another loses her home
to wind-driven fires.
Someone else swims a bit too far offshore,
currents inviting him
out and out.
And don’t I remember—
feeling like the Little Mermaid,
body weightless as I flipped and turned,
a castle in the coral below,
colorful whatnots beckoning me farther?
I could be spearfishing,
spotting something I wanted
in those vague, lilting waves.
It’s easy—
easy to lose one’s way
when what we desire
hovers just beyond reach.
Mauna Kea beach ~ bj 2009