IN THE PARK
You have forty-nine days between
death and rebirth if you're a Buddhist.
Even the smallest soul could swim
the English Channel in that time
or climb, like a ten-month-old child,
every step of the Washington Monument
to travel across, up, down, over or through
--you won't know till you get there which to do.
He laid on me for a few seconds
said Roscoe Black, who lived to tell
about his skirmish with a grizzly bear
in Glacier Park. He laid on me not doing anything. I could feel his heart
beating against my heart.
Never mind lie and lay, the whole
world
confuses them. For Roscoe Black you might say
all forty-nine days flew by.
I was raised on the Old Testament.
In it God talks to Moses, Noah,
Samuel, and they answer.
People confer with angels. Certain
animals converse with humans.
It's a simple world, full of crossovers.
Heaven's an airy Somewhere, and God
has a nasty temper when provoked,
but if there's a Hell, little is made of it.
No longtailed Devil, no eternal fire,
and no choosing what to come back as.
When the grizzly bear appears, he lies/lays down
on atheist and zealot. In the pitch-dark
each of us waits for him in Glacier Park.
~ Maxine Kumin, 1925 - 2014
TONIGHT
Tonight the peepers are as loud as all
the grandmothers of the world's canaries, those
Petey- and Dickey-birds trilling vibratos
from their baggage-handle perches, perpetual
singing machines stoned on seeds of finches' hemp.
Tonight the peepers are a summer camp-
ful of ten-year-olds still shrilling after taps.
Winter will have us back with cold so harsh
the nose hairs freeze.
Weasels will spring the traps.
But tonight -- tonight the peepers raise the marsh.
~ Maxine Kumin, 1925 - 2014
2 comments:
Very nice Randy...you never fail to amaze me...
The feeling is mutual.
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