TERRESTRIAL ILLUMINATION, NO. 43
Where sun once bleached the pale orange surface sand to whiteness,
Snow now falls on that same space to whiten. Snow falls, each shape
A different elaboration, all identity is false, falls in slanting patterns,
Each slant a different angle. There is no whiteness, only millions
Of different whitenesses. Snow also falls on the dark shiny oval of a pond,
A spider web of a whiteness and then disappears. Yesterday, when seen,
The surface of the pond was varied greens, the reflections from varied trees,
But now the surface is varied dark silvers.
TERRESTRIAL ILLUMINATIONS, NO. 44
Ancient Chinese poets circa Confucius wrote:
“The swift bird does not fly with the flock.”
I speculate on how in our times a postmodern poet would render the line.
“The swift bird does not fly with the flock,
Because the swift bird has been crippled
By the slave mentalities of the flock.”
Or otherwise: “The swift bird flies far ahead of the flock,
Flies out of sight of the flock,
Because the flock has clipped their wings with the scissors
Of their valves, their beliefs, and their lifestyle.”
TERRESTRIAL ILLUMINATION, NO. 45
Already late, it started 20 minutes ago, but I stopped
When I saw a marmot family sunning on a mountain stream rock’s flat surface.
The family, comfortably spread out, undisturbed by restlessness of obtuse man.
The rust-red rock was large, and it split the rapid flow of the stream
Into two flows of rainbow pastel colours, pinks, pale orange, cerulean,
light greens.
I stayed, the marmots awoke and played. I looked down into valley at
the white plank church
Where I had obligated myself to attend. As I gazed at the church’s
high steel steeple,
I resolved never to be late again. I would never be late again,
Because I would never go to church again. Every Sunday, at this time,
or any time,
I would come to this spot that was now sacred to me.
TERRESTRIAL ILLUMINATION, NO. 46
Despondent was John Stuart Shaw about his daughter.
The public’s argot had sent out numerous sound bites
That she formed the perfect silhouette when backlit
Behind a translucent silk curtain. She was generalized
By the hyperbolic utterance, “most beautiful.”
This upset John Stuart Shaw, who was petty professor
Of literature and made his reputation by being a parasite
By devoting his life to writing articles on a foreign playwright,
Who was famous for 22 months and then forgot.
He started to fantasize it was not his daughter, but the offspring
Of a love affair of his wife with another man. His wife was furious,
And after many arguments that upset the precise order of books
In their bookcases and the breaking of slick white dishes
Decorated with the curls of green dragons and Fukushima
Keido black ink Zen scrolls, she proved to him by DNA test
That the daughter was his daughter. He became desperate, despondent.
He was responsible for bringing the “most beautiful” into the world.
Now he must suffer as he watched this useless and sordid society
Exploit and pollute beauty, diminish her who was called
As beautiful as a Russian icon. Watching her degraded and
And her humanity destroyed by our society would be unbearable.
As he sat in his armchair, with a copy of Soren Kierkegaard on his lap,
He heard in his mind the applause of a society reducing his daughter
to a triviality.
[su_panel background=”#f2f2f2″ color=”#000000″ border=”0px none #ffffff” shadow=”0px 0px 0px #ffffff”]Duane Locke lives in Tampa, Florida. He has published 6,640 poems, including 29 books of poems. His latest book publication, April 2012, is Duane Locke: The First Decade (1968-1978)
