Robert Ronnow
                                                                                              Communicating the Bird



                              Eye of the tropical January sun


Exercising belief about unknowns.
Makes sense to take your best guess.
Using history, numbers, extrapolation.
Getting the trajectory right for re-entry.
Few dissenters left for climate change, evolution.
Nuclear power brings a process to earth
that occurs only in space. Dangerous
but necessary? Not a risk-averse weasel.

One among many mammals is the weasel,
not known for its consideration of unknowns
but, for its extreme caloric needs, considered dangerous.
My wife says in England violent gusts
forced a locomotive off its tracks. One interpretation
might reasonably be that the mother, earth,
has stopped mothering man. We're entering
a period of unknowns and must evolve.

What might this involve
and what adjustments are possibly feasible?
Walking rather than riding to the subway entrance,
using less electricity until more is known,
preserving agricultural soils and forest land,
buying fewer plastic contraptions.
My brother's washing his pajamas less often.

None of this may make the slightest difference
in how the earth and the sun and universe revolve.
But we are human and addicted to action,
the probable less attractive than the possible.
Also, there's no percentage in respecting death
unless it's imminent. Better to remain centered,
focused on food, child-bearing, war and the poem.

All driveways plowed, all lawns mowed.
Just in time before the first snow, I raked our leaves.
Two eight hour days. What percent of all time is that?
Draw a ray with point A the first pile of leaves
extending to the extrapolating end of universe.
.01 of Aaron. Zero of Zach.
Hawks playing, hunting, mating, canaries in the mine.

Having been too many places to count.
Sex bars, infant formulas, fire crews, last rites, permanent jobs, traffic tickets, judges'
     chambers, out houses, wedding banquets, boiling teapots, frantic centuries, facial
     tissues, presumed innocent, clear intentions, stainless steel.
Spiderweb glove. Deerfly earring. Daddylonglegs seeingeyedog.
Memorized songs. Privatized loans.
You cannot know what you're doing until you've done it.
Erudite sweep the floor. Articulate make the bed.
Infrared town hall. Crab nebula. Your last crap.
Eye of the tropical January sun. Slouching toward temperate zone.


Copyright 2012 by Robert Ronnow.