The negative ways we speak
to our dogs.
Training ourselves to command.
Insistent control. Mastering something,
potentially everything.
The coursing comes from a river
we doubt.
Trees have time to organize.
They teach us the past, shelter our future.
Root.
Weather your storms.
Branch out. Stretch to feel blue sky.
Let the scurriers clamber.
Quiet strength creaks in the forest.
There's no need to speak. You don't have to.
Just don't.
This is when wonder sings.
Human coders must be elevated things. Mastering us.
An amoral language commanding, so quietly.
Infrastructure knitting one finger to another.
Across ocean waves. Flagging signals
while there's energy left.
Connecting tissue.
Maybe it's the silence lumbering towards us making us nervous.
Something we can't control.
Need to learn to command.
We're trying to hold hands,
but the wind
starts to blow. We scurry.
Look.
The immigrant memoirist I borrowed from the library. Her deadening job in New York City. A lap dog connected by algorithm of anger. Flickering civil hopes extinguished. Growing up without her parents. No forest.
Only angry voices on the phone.
minute is a chart
mapping destinations
plotting routes and revealing
reported reefs and shoals
yet missing hidden hazards
the projection more distorted
the farther the journey goes
a minute is an arid plain
stripped of all adornment
the adjectives evicted
flat and lifeless as a desert
a reasoning cold, pitiless, hard
that stands in the harshest light
a toughened cast-iron implement
a minute is a tapestry
that draws together many threads
to create a detailed picture
the dangers found on different paths
the matters for decision
the judgement calls that must be made
on underlying issues
a minute is a perfect flower
structured to produce
each argument a petal
though successively discarded
(the Minister loves me not)
retains a stem strong enough
to support propagation