Only Human

Jogging along a gravel road that runs along a saltmarsh
I spotted a long-billed curlew about to spear a mud crab
when a red fox suddenly intervened, wringing its gloved paws.

"Stop this madness!" it exclaimed. "I warn you, cruelty
will consume you, and your children's children
will inherit your crazed bloodlust!"

The curlew stared with minuscule eyes as cold as asteroids
then skewered the crab straight through its shell and raised it to the sky.
The fox picked up a muddy stone and hurled it, but missed.

The curlew gave thanks, consumed the crab,
then, flying toward the sun, vanished like a dream with wings.
I jogged on, indifferent to the ways of wild things.

The fox ran up beside me. "You must die," it said, "for you
have seen a thing that humans mustn't know."
It bit me in the tendon. I fell. It lunged at my bare throat.

We grappled in the mud until I managed to subdue it
by knocking it against a stump until, stunned and bleeding,
it lay quite still. "Now listen," I hissed, for I could tell

it was only playing dead  -- "You think I have no soul
because I'm Man. Well, darn it, you're wrong.
I listen to Coltrane too, just like the rest of you."

"Coltrane?" it said. "You know Coltrane?" It's eyes
grew wide with fear. "How could you - a mortal -understand?"
I whistled a bit of A Love Supreme. It wept.

I offered it my handkerchief. It blew its nose, then gave it back.
It offered me its magic boots, which I refused.
(How could I write poems with magic boots? That's cheating.)

We argued a bit. It was convinced that Coltrane wasn't Man
but was the manifestation of the soul of Wolf
descended from the heavens.

We agreed to disagree. I jogged home, scratched and bleeding.
My wife scolded me for playing with undomesticated foxes
and insisted I get rabies shots and new glasses.

I said she should listen to Coltrane more, and stop wasting her time on Facebook.
She didn't understand. How could she? She never jogs on gravel roads
and besides, she's only human.

Shadows

All morning the clouds and their mysterious shadows drifted constant as a pod of whales across the soggy hills. For hours I sat and watched and eventually stopped thinking of them as whales, imagining them instead as voluptuous brides in billowing white dresses wafting down a petal-strewn knoll, which caused me to think of honeymoons, then coastlines, romantic resorts, candlelight and sex. To get my mind off sex I thought about God, who made the world and cumulus clouds and Adam and Eve in Eden, naked and not the least ashamed, which got me thinking about sex again as the blooming clouds and their shadows flowed on and on. Then, after long silence, I heard the plane, its lonely drone, as trifling as a far off bee. I thought little of it. The clouds held my gaze. Then suddenly the airplane's shadow pounced on me from behind, enveloped me like a swift eclipse, then shot like a leopard away. A rare occurence: five or six times, at most, have I been darkened by an airplane’s shadow. One’s could measure one’s life by such unlikelihoods. Indeed, I do. Each time it happens I ponder how many foreshadowings remain. Only the shadow of an airplane could get me thinking about death on such an exquisite day.

The Hazards of Diving

I know a man who dives for abalone.
He tells me of its hazards,
how it's possible to dive too deep,
remain too long in the seductive dark
like a gambler who can't break
from the spinning roulette wheel
because he feels too lucky.
Depleted of oxygen, a diver's brain
might mistake up for down, down for up
and with impaired judgement come to distrust
his own exhaled bubbles' ascension
and choose rather to swim down
in search of mermaids
like the poor fool who tosses
his life savings on the gambling table
in order to win back his Lexus.
Those few who've survived
affirm the ecstacy
of confusing down for up
loss for gain
dark for light
the mermaid's embrace.