I’m in a cabana on a beach in Cancún looking
Upon light-blue water so warm you can walk
Right in, no need to adjust to the temperature.
Neither the moon nor stars alone allure.
Celestial lips may good metaphors make,
yet we can’t long mere metaphor endure:
we seek cliché for companionship’s shake.
The advent of the Internet in general, and tools like Google search in particular, heralded an age in which instant access to all the world’s knowledge would enhance discourse, remove the traditional gatekeepers to information, and lead to greater human flourishing.
Somewhere over Tulsa the pilot warns
we’re passing through a storm. Experienced
in flight, trusting the engineers who designed
and built this plane, we pop headphones back
in our ears, turn to our movies and TV…
The alarm goes off at 4. I will myself to my
feet, not for a grand mission, but to catch
a flight. In the predawn darkness, driving the
101 to the 405, I recite Clifton, Keats, & Limón
In Guangdon Province a young father rises early
for work at Doubleeagle Industry Limited, where
he operates the plastic-injection molding machine.
It is rote, if loud and dangerous work…
I was seventeen when I read Alan Watts’ The Way of Zen
a couple pages at a time, putting down the book to observe
sunset drape itself over my mind, falling asleep thinking
of not thinking, hearing a flock of birds and imagining myself
The passage of the Inflation Reduction Act created unprecedented opportunities to reduce energy bills, improve air quality, and create good-paying jobs.
Too much talk of revolution
makes me hungry, and there
is little in the fridge that makes
one believe in a better world:
Leaves gather like un- sold goods. Need help, asks the rake. Just browsing, I say.