Blasphemy

Silence is no golden rule,
Timid self-made maker of the thundering hooves clicking sparks
Like a pressed army on the cobble stones.
Old Europa with her dead young and provenance of good patina,
Now frail, baroque, its fragility in need of repair.
The Slav and the Gypsies, the weave of the Pope’s rug of color,
The run at the doors of Arabia, the separating rift valley of the Red Sea,
East Africa, the pull of Rus and of Asia, the Tatars, Magyars, Poles and Jews.
Slow, the move of Slovenians and Ukrainians, the Tiber, the Tigris,
Brahmaputra and Yangtze draining from the high plateau through a mess of dams.

Not a disposition on expertise, surely the numbers bear out something
Beyond catastrophe, not intimate enough to call unity or
Personal enough to call peace.
Intersections of crowded traffic and the cargo cult of possession,
Oily with money and someone else’s sacrifice.
The dock workers and their night off in the bars and cafés.
The artists idealizing the lot of us, the fate of us in a song.

Crowded quarter of the Old City, divided heart against herself.
The taiga melts, the rivers swell,
Great burdens of ice in the brown bourbon of our glasses.
The children are back to their classes,
A little history and continental drift,
A swelling hot spot for when Yellowstone blows.

It will be hard to keep the people on the paths and in the parking lots.
The river runs a new course.
The people claim identity.
It is about more than keeping the peace.
Our times matter.
The army is no answer for Mandalay.
Who will answer for brutality that pushed the Muslim diaspora to the Great Delta.
Why should crowded Bangladesh be called to house a million refugees?

The great river of the North, the pulses through the paddy fields.
The Mekong and the dead of the Ganga, cycling, recycling the eon
Of both crumbing and rising mountains.
How can the mega cities hold a million more,
But by grace and our efforts, their efforts lifting next produce and haul
As the barge that plies or the bicycle rickshaw loaded with goods.

A cup of tea.
Always time to go.
The river of the souls of the dead washing the feet and shiny bodies of the living.
Their stomachs growling,
The sun rising.
Govinda among the reeds with her butterflies.
Old Mama pounding grain to flour.

Rain muddies the people of the delta and
Overwhelms their jack- built sewers and wells.
Insects and all we need, some of our need
Is a clean source of drinking water.
Pets for sale.
Long parallel rails.

The goods and excess to feed the dreams and
Not just the mouths of the needy.
The prospect of dignity, legacy, birth right to speak,
Live to the limits of living and break with shadow
As the dawn breaks, effortless, endlessly re-capitulating
How beauty knows the day and
Rain sutures the troubles of the night.