Called Stone

The bitter and the bald
called stone
to crumple
handwise
origami-folded red gilt–
flecked
paper
ranunculus petal
fragile
stray seeds pecked from
winter stems.

© 2005

Link to Called Stone reading
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Holding a Toad 

Do you remember how it felt
to held a toad in your hand?
You stroked its velvet skin
and it peed in your hand.

You were a child,
how could you know
that you would one day bear witness
to their passing?

A few hundred, a few thousand,
Cheetah’s gene pool
won’t survive a single illness.
So then must tiger, mountain gorilla,
and panda pass,
with countless less attractive creatures,
unremarked.

A rare iridescent flower blooms
in a Northern California garden.
Sticky with nectar, she begs
for her South American bat.

The whale moves in slow time
and speaks in song.
We hear fragments of meaning,
their message is not for us.

Humans are supposed the apex of evolution,
as dinosaurs were the apex of their era,
birds, crocodiles and alligators remain.
Somewhere a form of life
is evolving to a new pinnacle.
Our language will not be relevant,
we will not appear
to have been intelligent
as they define it.

© 2006