Paradise Lost

Pondering the Introspective

it’s late fall, almost start of winter
in central valley west coast
California

cold bareness, beige yellow soil
covered with desiccated puncture vine,
dead, or dyin’

bits of debris, dried grasshopper carcass
just lying there,

i wonder if it enjoyed its summer
some brown ants moving slowly toward it
i wonder if they consider it road kill
John the Baptist ate locusts
relatives of this kind

these tiny, six legged creatures
i’ve often wanted to communicate with them,
ask if they know who created them,
or if they know who we are

anyway, they mind their own
business
smart, 
no hurry, it’s winter
they’ve stored most of their food away already
that’s what some biologist’s have written
(i believe ’em)

these hard working insects
are slow today
like the morning sunlight, 
a circular, dull yellow, flat disc
through the cold mist,
moves secretly slow
almost as if it is alive
and can think
(whose to say it can’t)

it’s like watching a plant grow;
watching the disc move,
you try to clock its slow procession 
from its eastern mountain nest

you try, 
but the process is so slow
too slow, you bore
you rebel
and dismiss your own rudeness
and get away
to other more interesting things

but there’s nowhere to go
you’re up to your ears
with media
internet,
music,
television
gameboys,
sitting,
pacing,
texting,
YouTubing
sports events

you’re fed up, 
with tweeting,
skyping
and the plethora of other electronic activities

so, WTH! . . .

the holidays are around the corner

. . . Earth’s closest star’s hanging 20 degrees above 
in the pastel blue whiteness of sky 
now
it was black sky at mid-night
last night,
with countless suns


can’t ever touch them,
stars

so there’s no point, is there?
never can reach them

a fantastic cricket named Jimmy
wished on one of them 

you can see them off the internet’s image pages,
off the Hubble
off the radioscopes
nestled in heart of south american jungles
or high mountain tops in Chile,
or from the Challengers’ flights

what’s the point?

even if you could touch them
and say you found a Goldilocks
Planet
in their nurturing 
shadow proximity
you couldn’t get away from Earth anyway
or send abused, mistreated,
persecuted, maligned
refugees there
too, too far

yesterday 
the sky betrayed me
it harnessed the light of our closest star
that turned traitor;

Sun descended into the horizon
taking its light with it

no, i’m not gonna worship it like the Egyptians;
recall, they called it Ra,
isn’t it just a doggone orange star?

4.5 billion years old and only five billion left
before it dies
kicking and screaming as
it turns into a red giant?

i won’t worship it like the Aztecs did
it won’t add longevity to my own life
what did they call theirs,
the same star as the Egyptians

tonatiuh, Aztec sun god
sacrificed blood to it
killing their own kind
their loved ones for it

the Mayans did it too
Kinich Ajaw,
their own kind
for a star that shines
in our sky today
same one they couldn’t touch

in the depths of delusion
allusion, delusion,
deceived by evil energies
fallen ones
the arch villain ones
from Paradise Lost
the ones that make me pissed
today
try to make me worship
them
 
 but i won’t
(not knowingly)

crazy dude called Adolf
did it too
didn’t sacrifice to a star directly,
but in delusion
worshipped evil deities
from the Pleiades, 
a group of stars too 
you know


bring in Dr. Phil or Freud
do we need them?
’course not
any fool can recognize Evil

the soil is soft, almost no sounds from it
no protests from it
as i compress its
puffed up disposition
fluffed up by low barometric
pressure, less than the 15 plus bars
of mercury
at sea level
fluffed from rain, drying out, wet, then
drying out again

i’m thankful for the relative
peace the creatures below my feet
are enjoying

the sun
is good for that,
amen