The Project: Start of a larger work



The province of the sun is the territory of those committed to decades of life on the planet as it is, with all its apparent joys as well as perils. The joys are deep, driving their action and speech, dividing life into nouns, verbs and bits of color. For a long time, the citizens live in defense of their province, sometimes violently denying the experience of outsiders: for a long time, time enough to pass through stages of species-saving.

Quantum Theory



If I were an earthworm
I say that rhythmically
as if I were singing "rich man."

.
If I were an earthworm,
there would only be WHEN..
.
Life would be time
as light and dark would
come and go and my gut
would feed as if I had
a tube to my stomach.
.
Life would be
a tunnel of passing.
My muscles modelled in my nerves
would create my space.
.
How different would be
the confounding universe,
if I were born
not a man?



The province of shadow belongs to many for whom the protective dome of duration has developed gaps and holes. They glimps alien scenes through the gaps and can't return to the sunshine. And there, there, are the stretchings of milliseconds, the spaces between spaces, the other rooms constructed during the creation of the house, the tunnels in the air, the secret escape channels through which only rare people fit, the holes in time.

Hatching in Paradise: An Early Glimpse



Ever since I was a worm
in my parents' house, when I
crawled through the tiny
holes and tunnels

the passages of warmth and wet
that join the world
with love, turned around the bed.
My mother's bed was a nest of flowers.

I could hide deep
under the the heavy covers
in the dark roots, or I could
slip through the zipper door

into pastel dreamland
and dry new born
insect eyes
in honey air.



Labyrinthian Day



The trees
extrude themselves
along the low-resistance
pathways in the air.
Nature abhors such vacuums and
fills them with wood.
.
The birds who
inhabit the trees
ride sunlight trails,
slip through transparent
tunnels in the surface of wind.




Where Is the Center?

The pathogen rises
in its morning,
has a meal of
carbon rendering and
changes. Modifies
some DNA. Feels good.

Pathogen and mate
converse alien-fashion
about an earth beyond
what we can understand
(but still the earth).

As their meals
make themselves relevant
the pathogens flip
through information tunnels
and say their daily prayers.



In the shadow we begin evaluating the purpose of language. The collection of codes, the sounds and finger-strokes are useful only when we live in sunshine. As soon as the side doors open and all the escape tunnels lead away into the privacy of secrets, we no longer share. We needn't point things out to ourselves. That is the natural law even for many who have not left.

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