The parasympathetic nervous system warms
Like a lizard in the sun. Time to be calm,
Digest the view. Rain and spring snow cleared
The dusty, dirty air. Now that warmth has returned,
The clouds have a little while to be picturesque
Above the peaky roofs, the sky a little time
To display wavelengths classically pale blue.
Children's voices emerge outdoors, blossoms
And leaves shine impossibly brightened.
Body knows, deep in healed and broken bones,
That this is an incorrigible world, that pleasure
Comes as reward, mostly, for doing the things
Body’s ancestors tended successfully to do.
Life has never negotiated a lasting truce.
But this is a truce. There are magical machines
One’s great-great grandparents would have been
Frightened to see, having never imagined.
There are sounds from backbeats to passing jets
To the determined chirping of continuous things.
Don’t bet on the jets or the machines. Bet
On the living things. Of course, that’s the thing.
Can you tell at what point we machines, we
Technologies like language and poetry
And self-propelling metal engines, cross
That imperceptible stream, minuscule Rubicon,
That wanders the line between living and mere
Being? Consult your contented lizard innards,
Life forever subject to failures and rewards.
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