" New Birds: Back From Brazil "
I.
No more grackles rasping,
I need:
some new birds,
clouds lined with red satin,
nasty friends to caper on the porch,
smokes and whiskey, transcontinental meditation,
I need a sign from God that he has better things to do
than sit in the bleachers and watch the spread of HIV.
II.
The coffee stinks: acid, burning, sits on the stove an hour
too long, the toast is burnt, the cheese is blue and
I just brought it back from the organic store.
Damn this heat!
Damn the broken air conditioner where
mouse-gray sparrows build their nests!
Damn the sungod and the heatgod!
Show Yourself! Prove Yourself!
III.
Not about the smashing of the front end of my brand new Volvo.
Not about abandonment by my teacher who likes the air in Boulder.
Not about bored-to-death safety, not about endless tv nights. Oh no.
Once I thought I would be dead by fifty and not have to worry
about the death of capitalism, the decline of the east and west,
all in my lifetime! I did not expect to see such corruption and shame.
IV.
I have practiced the calming mantra: "This is not important.
This too shall pass." Learned it in French and Spanish for variety.
But it's not true.
I saw a child with bowed legs and big belly
stand outside a flour mill waiting for the government inspector
to leave with his foreign friends.
I saw the shacks without roofs,
the boys without shoes or work or future.
Not acceptable. Not in my lifetime.
© 2002 Treezaa Charles Levenstein
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