Soliloquy

Howling prairie wind outside the window
crack-whistling through the frame.
An early summer snow storm revolves through Saskatchewan
from far Alberta
tears onto this lake-flat valley
diamond images studding the night,
studded onto black leather,
silver studded images or projected color slides:
image, a mosaic of sensations explaining the world,
sweeps across foxtail grass at cemetery edges,
field waste places and cities’ industrial border.

A poet would reach for his culture
Symphonies, fractal ballets begin to rehearse.

Drought cracks forming in drying slough muck.
Warn you tongue in the morning bell.

Society is being asked if civilization is worth maintaining
or is any massive form inherently stultifying.
And is not the State an instrument of pernicious falsity
stamping number onto a totem of the turtle?

These words are not song;
they come from behind the barrier of meaning:
“Would we trick anyone with the old stone into sound business?”
Or work the bull?
Padding the take?
Not to get caught in a mask
with speech as pretense of another reality
nor scribbling authenticate a lie
lest windy firestorm sweep evolution.

                                                    The mirror shows
                                         light violet snakes of the sun
                                           with blazing fiery radiance
                                       White ibises lift from mud flats

and there’s no need to curl up with a weapon
and defend any territory.

A hollow reed the body sits.
Wind-rustles the ear hears.
Breath opens/and closes.
Sitter vanishes,
giving back what once they owned,
            opening,
              letting be,
                                I had only learned to claim it.