Spring Nights

		We are all so very full of knowing
		that we are empty,
		empty of understanding.
			--e. e. cummings

Spring nights, before
the mosquitos hatch, drop
like a waterfall, cool and blue.

Stand in your yard, watch
the sky disappear
through fresh oak leaves,

feel your head
open up
and stresses blow like cotton.

There's another
God damned election next week; there will be mosquitos soon;
you're out of milk.

Look up.
Open.
Drift.

Stand and feel this, miracles
are for first-hand experience,
not replay.

That's why Jesus didn't drop by in an age of videotape,
why Zhao Bing of the Later Han lived before CD's and DVD,
why we have no photographs of Mohammed.

The best miracles strike
once
then reverberate

in legends, folklore, and history,
or quietly in
ripples of memory.

On TV, politicians try
to present themselves as Buddha;
no, not that:

like Peter or Paul, like Moses or Elijah.
They pose and flex,
they smile and peer sincerely

at the cameras, changing
their patterns and inflections with words made
from chameleon skin.

They, they, they need
to sit with you
on oak roots;

you can all look up
as the moon rises
bright with flavor, so ripe

it seems about to burst
into sunshine.  Tell him
to put his camera down

and him to keep his video camera in its case.
The miracle consists
of roots

against your ass and leaves against the sky,
of wind and traffic's hum, of more
dimensions than sciences dream of,

more flavors than factories hold
except
on spring nights

dropping
like a waterfall,
cool and blue.

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