(no subject)
I go back to the beach in the daytime to write my "Sea', I stand there
barefoot by the sea stopping to scratch one ankle with one toe, I hear the
rhythm of those waves, and they're saying suddenly "Is Virgin you trying to
fathom me" -- I go back to make a pot of tea.
Summer afternoon...
Impatiently chewing
The Jasmine leaf
At high noon the sun always coming out at last, strong, beating down on
my nice high porch where I sit with books and coffee and the noon I thought
about the ancient Indians who must have inhabited this canyon for thousands
of years, how even as far back as the loth century this valley must have
looked the same, just different trees: these ancient Indians simply the
ancestors of the Indians of only recently say 1860... How they've all died
and quietly buried their grievances and excitements How the creek may have
been an inch deeper since logging operations of the last sixty years have
removed some of the watershed in the hills back there... How the women
pounded the local acorns, acorns or shmacorns, I finally found the natural
nuts of the valley and they were sweet tasting -- And men hunted deer -- In
fact God knows what they did because I wasn't here -- But the same valley, a
thousand years of dust more or less over their footsteps of A. D. 960 -- And
as far as I can see the world is too old for us to talk about it with our
new words -- We will pass just as quietly through life (passing through,
passing through) as the 10th century people of this valley only with a
little more noise and a few bridges and dams and bombs that wont even last a
million years -- The world being just what it is, moving and passing
through, actually alright in the long view and nothing to complain about --
Even the rocks of the valley had earlier rock ancestors, a billion billion
years ago, have left no howl of complaint -- Neither the bee, or the first
sea urchins, or the clam, or the severed paw -- All said So-Is sight of the
world, right there in front of my nose as I look, -- And looking at that
valley in fact I also realize I have to make lunch and it wont be any
different than the lunch of those olden men and besides it'll taste good --
Everything is the same, the fog says "We are fog and we fly by dissolving
like ephemera, " and the leaves say "We are leaves and we jiggle in the
wind, that's all, we come and go, grow and fall" -- Even the paper bags in
my garbage pit say "We are man transformed paper bags made out of wood pulp,
we are kinda proud of being paper bags as long as that will be possible, but
we'll be mush again with our sisters the leaves come rainy season" -- The
tree stumps say "We are tree stumps torn out of the ground by men, sometimes
by wind, we have big tendrils full of earth that drink out of the earth'...
Men say "We are men, we pull out tree stumps, we make paper bags, we think
wise thoughts, we make lunch, we look around, we make a great effort to
realize everything is the same" -- While the sand says "We are sand, we
already know, " and the sea says "We are always come and go, fall and plosh.
" -- The empty blue sky of space says "All this comes back to me, then goes
again, and comes back again, then goes again, and I don't care, it still
belongs to me" -- The blue sky adds "Dont call me eternity, call me God if
you like, all of you talkers are in paradise: the leaf is paradise, the tree
stump is paradise, the paper bag is paradise, the man is paradise, the fog
is paradise" -- Can you imagine a man with mar-velous insights like these
can go mad within a month? (because you must admit all those talking paper
bags and sands were telling the truth) -- But I remember seeing a mess of
leaves suddenly go skittering in the wind and into the creek, then floating
rapidly down the creek toward the sea, making me feel a nameless horror even
then of "Oh my God, we're all being swept away to sea no matter what we know
or say or do" -- And a bird who was on a crooked branch is suddenly gone
without my even hearing him."
barefoot by the sea stopping to scratch one ankle with one toe, I hear the
rhythm of those waves, and they're saying suddenly "Is Virgin you trying to
fathom me" -- I go back to make a pot of tea.
Summer afternoon...
Impatiently chewing
The Jasmine leaf
At high noon the sun always coming out at last, strong, beating down on
my nice high porch where I sit with books and coffee and the noon I thought
about the ancient Indians who must have inhabited this canyon for thousands
of years, how even as far back as the loth century this valley must have
looked the same, just different trees: these ancient Indians simply the
ancestors of the Indians of only recently say 1860... How they've all died
and quietly buried their grievances and excitements How the creek may have
been an inch deeper since logging operations of the last sixty years have
removed some of the watershed in the hills back there... How the women
pounded the local acorns, acorns or shmacorns, I finally found the natural
nuts of the valley and they were sweet tasting -- And men hunted deer -- In
fact God knows what they did because I wasn't here -- But the same valley, a
thousand years of dust more or less over their footsteps of A. D. 960 -- And
as far as I can see the world is too old for us to talk about it with our
new words -- We will pass just as quietly through life (passing through,
passing through) as the 10th century people of this valley only with a
little more noise and a few bridges and dams and bombs that wont even last a
million years -- The world being just what it is, moving and passing
through, actually alright in the long view and nothing to complain about --
Even the rocks of the valley had earlier rock ancestors, a billion billion
years ago, have left no howl of complaint -- Neither the bee, or the first
sea urchins, or the clam, or the severed paw -- All said So-Is sight of the
world, right there in front of my nose as I look, -- And looking at that
valley in fact I also realize I have to make lunch and it wont be any
different than the lunch of those olden men and besides it'll taste good --
Everything is the same, the fog says "We are fog and we fly by dissolving
like ephemera, " and the leaves say "We are leaves and we jiggle in the
wind, that's all, we come and go, grow and fall" -- Even the paper bags in
my garbage pit say "We are man transformed paper bags made out of wood pulp,
we are kinda proud of being paper bags as long as that will be possible, but
we'll be mush again with our sisters the leaves come rainy season" -- The
tree stumps say "We are tree stumps torn out of the ground by men, sometimes
by wind, we have big tendrils full of earth that drink out of the earth'...
Men say "We are men, we pull out tree stumps, we make paper bags, we think
wise thoughts, we make lunch, we look around, we make a great effort to
realize everything is the same" -- While the sand says "We are sand, we
already know, " and the sea says "We are always come and go, fall and plosh.
" -- The empty blue sky of space says "All this comes back to me, then goes
again, and comes back again, then goes again, and I don't care, it still
belongs to me" -- The blue sky adds "Dont call me eternity, call me God if
you like, all of you talkers are in paradise: the leaf is paradise, the tree
stump is paradise, the paper bag is paradise, the man is paradise, the fog
is paradise" -- Can you imagine a man with mar-velous insights like these
can go mad within a month? (because you must admit all those talking paper
bags and sands were telling the truth) -- But I remember seeing a mess of
leaves suddenly go skittering in the wind and into the creek, then floating
rapidly down the creek toward the sea, making me feel a nameless horror even
then of "Oh my God, we're all being swept away to sea no matter what we know
or say or do" -- And a bird who was on a crooked branch is suddenly gone
without my even hearing him."