Intelligent Life

("Hail in the Desert, Northern Nevada")

Do the heavy clouds

Mutter their tears and glower?

Well, and if they do

Sweet sage answers with

Kind and liberal breath,

And so does the dirt

Proclaim itself with flint and dust

On a rainy day.

The Quail race, heads forward

And beside them tiny chicks

Flutter and bounce like feather balls,

And so, outside our evil world

They move to their own

Beating of hearts.

So, too, the snake coils

Under sheltering rock

Lizard scrambles, looks over his back

And darts into brittlebush.

The innocent datura

Luxuriates in soft trumpets

And grows it’s fatal fruit.

Above, the Hawk soars

On solar winds, below

Ancient stars, all

Enmeshed in the hunting of time.

We know all this and yet…

And yet somehow, we still can

Call our lives civilized

And say they’re the benighted ones.

Worth only the subjection of pens

And the yield of the butcher’s blade.

Ah, but let the lay of the land

And the current of wind

Expose this ridiculous lie.

The native ken of the reviving Fish

The patience of the creeping Newt

The watchful eye of the Rabbit

And the yip of the Coyotes

Proclaim a thousand nations

And histories beyond our understanding.

We think ourselves so bold and knowing

But where does intelligence lie?

Oh, muttering clouds who hold

Our so many lives

In their vaporous hands

The sun beyond, who’s mighty beams

Rest quiet and modest upon our fate,

Perhaps they know in their ages

What was really meant

When a lonely, wise wanderer

Spoke to every heart and soul

The words prophetically ringing

In my ears today…

The meek shall inherit the Earth,

Someday.