What Is And What Should Never Be

Men talk about Bible miracles because there is no miracle in their lives. Cease to gnaw that crust. There is ripe fruit over your head - Thoreau

Cain Slaying Abel, by Peter Paul Rubens, c. 1609

i awaken to a recycled day

slave to existence

freeman to resistance

choosing not to board the clickety clacking train

for a boxcar full of nothing's empty gain

because it's all the same

climb the hill with an aching back

be prepared for hell's sneak attack

there's rhythm in the trees

a melody in the breeze

dancing in the bees arthritic knees

no thank you, let alone please

walking against the traffic and choosing to let things be

revolving doors need no key

it's quite easy to see

against the grain

offerings by abel and murder by cain

what is and what should never be

Author's Note

“When I consider that the nobler animal have been exterminated here - the cougar, the panther, lynx, wolverine, wolf, bear, moose, dear, the beaver, the turkey and so forth and so forth, I cannot but feel as if I lived in a tamed and, as it were, emasculated country... Is it not a maimed and imperfect nature I am conversing with? As if I were to study a tribe of Indians that had lost all it's warriors...I take infinite pains to know all the phenomena of the spring, for instance, thinking that I have here the entire poem, and then, to my chagrin, I hear that it is but an imperfect copy that I possess and have read, that my ancestors have torn out many of the first leaves and grandest passages, and mutilated it in many places. I should not like to think that some demigod had come before me and picked out some of the best of the stars. I wish to know an entire heaven and an entire earth.” - Thoreau