5/11 and 12/2013

the World

a place, a time, an Age

ancient, modern, futuristic

wanton, obscene, deadly

bright, holy, innocent

I wander there,

free perhaps ...

tired, rested, joyful

embarrassed, friendly

scared, ceremonial

playful, sad

angry, burning

ashamed, cold

near 7 billion souls

are with me,

wandering and wondering

clashing, fighting

hating, loving

wounding, healing

touching

and then there are the quiet ones,

the ones who don’t need to shout

and get everyone else’s attention ...

the ones who are content just being themselves ...

that’s a hard enough task, being just the human being

we want and need to be.

we inhabit the World

we billions ...

but just what is it we inhabit?

what is this World?

Does it have a story?

Our time - via the “scientist”

sings songs of big bangs and long

hidden sea swells of evolution

upon evolution, upon evolution

until the human being appears,

on this grave stage: the World

so there are two now

us billions and the stage - the World

we seem to be its progeny - this World

of big bangs and evolutionary trees

made us out of itself ... or so the tale is told ...

but when ever did the stage make the actor?

do the floorboards transmute themselves into

feet and legs and hair and teeth, and

ultimately speech and song?

by the myths of science, a long long tale

to be sure,

the stuff appears out of nothing, and

having more time than god (who it is

declared by some to only have taken seven days),

the stuff from nothing makes a human being ...

a miracle of accidents and random chaos

a mad tale we tell children, who lacking

yet reason have no basis on which to disagree ...

when these children play with sand on the beach

we might suggest how they too can create castles in

the air - visions of billions of years where everything

is made of pieces of sand, thrown up into the air

where wind and tide take all these little pieces

and rearrange them into countless forms

stars and suns and planets and plants

and animals and us billions on a stage ...

great power and wisdom must this miracle

of accidents and random chaos have,

for its mad tale lets us breathe and

bleed and talk and walk and fuck

and get drunk and cry and be sad

and run and wear silly hats

when I was young, I was told this tale

in books and bits and pieces of language

although the tale in Church was not

the same tale is in school

until one day I discovered thoughts!

invisible to others, mine only to have;

but thoughts nonetheless ...

whence came these miracles of meaning

in which I swam .... the tale of the myth-making

scientist was that I had a brain - some material stuff

that lent me thoughts, and perhaps even lent me the

thought (not true it seemed for some) that I even existed

so now the tale got stranger .... a miracle of accidents

and random  chaos made a stage on which us

billions danced and with grave madness and certainty

the priests of science declared:
I was not!  I was not!  I was not!

I do believe I prefer my silly hats, and

would rather have tea with a mad hatter

then believe the miracle of accidents ...

why ever would I think us billions had

no point, and were but a virus and a disease

on the poor earth-world, hell bent to destroy it?

that strange thought others sell me

is their vanity - their belief they know better than me ...

I’d rather remain a child in love with play,

than follow the mad scientist off the cliff

in the cart of the miracle of accidents

who is he to tell me what to think ...

How shameful to insist he knows better

of a past no scientist has even seen

but only dreamed, taking his theories

for great truths, ...

all the same too, the priests of books,

called religion, who also tell me what to think and believe ...

how crass of them, how arrogant ...

is there a truth which is sounder and better

than the miracle of accidents and the old teachings

in dusty books shoved in my face in Sunday school?

who do I ask?

not these men, these priests of science or these

priests of religion - they hardly seem reliable ...

perhaps methinks, I should ask the World from

whence it came ... will not the world itself know its

home, is place of birth, its future ...

the World lets me dance on its surfaces,

hide in its caves,

play on its sea shores

walk in its rain,

and parts the clouds for me at night so

I can see the stars ...

a good companion this World ...

it gives me fruit and grains and meat

and eggs and fur to wear if I am cold ...

its lightening gives fire, and while I

pursue its secrets there is one thought I

have which rebels against the priests of

both science and the books of so-called gods ...

it is the thought I first felt in early childhood

that the World was alive and magical

and that She/He/It knew me as I knew it

we were kindred this World and I

both of us billions and the World

had self-consciousness and Being

I was its Child!  Its beloved Child!

Now there is a tale well told - some think

it is too primitive, given how many aboriginals

tell the same story, where trees can talk, and

rocks can sing and stars play on seas of light

I like that story ... I want to be part of that story

I want to be the Child of Father Sky and Mother Earth ...

so boo I say to the miracle of accidents and the myths of dusty old books

go away and leave us billions alone - stop confusing us with

the madness of priests of either science or religion - we billions need

none of that in order to touch and love and dance and sing

and play on the stage of the World that loved me into Being

and gave me thought so that I could know and sing myself the World’s

Great Song.

we are all brothers and sisters, cousins and kin ...

animal, plant, stone and star -

and World

and we billions -

all related and loved

and in love, should we so choose.