Up there, the leaves were down. The fool
Who should have fallen, should’ve dropped
Like a burnt log or lumpen boulder, tumbling
Into the ravine that very afternoon, sat
Watching the fallen canopy crawl along
The ground, back and forth in every breeze,
Its colors now dulled to cream and brown.
Let us think about something other
Than ourselves advised one part of mind
To that part still scheming and self-soothing,
Rocking manically back and forth in the dark
Pockets of a bumpy skull. A fishing skiff,
A rowboat with a small outboard, actually,
Two men and four poles tilted at odd angles,
Floated past a scrim of newly barren aspens.
Murmuring male conversation drifted along
With the mutter of the motor. One could lose
An hour or two parsing the various levels
Of the artificial and the natural in that scene,
Once one accepted the human distinction
That whatever humans had done was art
And artificial, while whatever humans had
Left to its own prehuman patterns was real.
Better to have declared it all of a piece
With the world that generated all of it, fish
And engines, boulders, creeks, and concrete
Dams included. The boat floated around
A bend in the shoreline and the air was back
To a few urgently chirping birds and breezes
In the few remaining leaves. If I could go
To sleep with no more planning, not even
For sleep, no more effort, no more scheming
And dreaming, no more urge for explanation,
Thought the fool, if I could. What bravery,
Those who compel themselves to go
And do not wait to be compelled. A fly
Buzzed in sun beside a charcoaled hearth.
Small waves collapsed on the gravelly shore.
Proprioception and prepositional thinking
Are the enemies of sensible extinction.
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