Nature

When I say nature and forget the city
a steel rod strikes me in the head. When
I say life and forget the molten rock, a
pebble falls from a great height and strikes
my hand. When I say people and forget 
the birds, a raven drops yesterday's 
dinner on my ears. These ten thousand
things in tension and combination
manufacture the houses of the ants
and the factories of the humans. I
speak from too far down the hallway
sometimes and from too far up the
creek at other times. Often I move
too quickly and think too slowly
of the infinity of duality, the trinity
of causality, the willingness of the
will to be tricked into sleeping 
without remembering to dream.
I forget my self and become the
rest. I forget to rest and lost my
self. I forget to forget and lose my
feet. When I touch the boulder at 
the heart of the gulley, I become 
the memory of the absence of time.
When I feel the coyote's teeth in 
her eyes, I dwell without a house
in the house of shattered bricks,
of hearth-concocted schemes.
When I live outside my life, the
bones of last decade's deer build
a cemetery for each death I may
yet learn. When the earth dies 
again, the sun will stare. When
the sun dies again, the stars will
wink. When the stars die again,
mind will recur. When mind
dies again, recurrence may blur.
When uncertainty rides again,
the horsemen will sing in the 
chorus of the beginning of the
trembling of the lightning on the
face of the buildings where the 
concrete buried the river and the
clouds buried the cars. Crows 
fly level with the asphalt, gathering
flotsam and jetstream to prove
adaptation works and this chicken
will do as well as that corpse. When
I say when, the pouring will continue.
When the pouring overflows, the
when will resemble the where and
the what will become the why.