THE WILD

Animal tracks in snow
footloose paw prints
go across my path
and vanish into the woods.

Every time I walk outside,
I see this disregard
for human engineering.

These creatures don't care
about surveying, bulldozing or plowing.

I stick to the tracks
made by boots, tires and cross-country skis.
I deviate only
when I walk into the trees to pee.








COMING TOPSIDE

When we came topside, I took with me my favorite mother-stone, and she took
her favorite mother-stone, and we started one family all over again. We
needed to start this family over, because our former family was somehow
erased, forgotten when we came topside. We'd left that family bottomside,
and then we'd climbed upward, without any of our relatives, until we came
topside. We were on the top of the barrier, the thing separating us from our
families, and all we had were these stones that were our favorites. We took
the stones out of our pockets, but we didn't throw them away. We just
separated them from our pockets, and when we did, it seemed that our mothers
came topside, too.
"Did you bring your daughter-stones?" we asked our mothers.
  Our two mothers said yes, they had brought those stones. And then there
were four of us and four stones, all on the top side of the barrier. And in
this way we were able to start not one family, but two families, all over
again.








SLEEPING WORLD

Everything around me seems to be sleeping. The earth is breathing heavily;
the moon has its eye closed. The trees are swaying slowly; some are
whistling, others creaking.
  All of the natural things are resting, but I am wide awake, perhaps
because I had a stimulant too late in the day. Or perhaps because my mind is
locked in overdrive. No, it must be the stimulant, the caffeine in my black
tea, that is keeping me from joining the world in slumber.
  There is only one answer: I will have to switch from black tea to
orange-blossom tea, or peppermint. Then I can brew a dose, drink it, and
snooze out. I wonıt have to walk wired through the natural world, listening
to the breathing of the earth. I wonıt have to march beneath the moon when
its eye is closed. And I can forget about the swaying, creaking, resting
trees.












THE WHITE RACE AND WHITE RICE

Does the white race eat much white rice? I suppose so, but don't other races
also enjoy white rice? Or does the black race prefer black rice, rice doused
with squid ink, as in paella? No, black rice might appeal more to the Latino
race. Are Latinos even a race, or are they more of a group? And aren't the
Iberians the ones who invented paella? And how about brown rice? Is brown
rice consumed more often by members of the brown race? Who belongs to the
brown race, anyway? Is there such a thing, or is it more of a group?
Certainly, the white race likes brown rice, too. And when members of the
white race get down to their white or brown rice, do they shovel it or lift
it? I doubt that they shovel it, because most of them don't use chopsticks.
Asians use those utensils, but some Asians shovel, while others lift. Many
Asians are probably unaware of the etiquette involved with transferring rice
from bowl to mouth. Do members of the white race care about how to eat white
rice? Do they care if it comes in cakes or mounds? Do they notice when they
are using their fingers and when they are using their forks? Do they have a
preference for long grain versus short grain? What is Rice-A-Roni, anyway?
Isn't that more like a mixture of pasta and rice? Whatıs the difference
between Rice-A-Roni and Spanish rice? Heck if I know. And what about the
people who plant the rice, risking infection and infestation as they wade in
the patties? Are they adequately compensated for what they do? How is rice
harvested anyway? Chopping the stalks must be easier than separating the
grains at the ends of the stem. Does the white race cultivate white rice?
Has anyone done a study of this subject? I say itıs high time to pay
attention to whatıs happening on the floodplains.










KING FOR A MINUTE

  "Are you the oldest in our house?" she asks.
  "Yes," I say.
  "When you're the oldest in the house," she says, "youıre like the king."
  I look around our place. It doesn't look much like a castle or palace.
There are no throne rooms in which to conduct business, no slotted windows
through which to shoot arrows from crossbows, no suits of armor with which
to protect ourselves in battle, no chapel in which to pray for our souls.
  "What does that mean?² I ask.
  "When you're the king, you can get mad and say bad words. When you're not
the king, you'll get a time out."
  "How do you know about kings?" I ask.
  "Henry the Eighth was a king."
  "What did he do as king?"
  "He told beautiful women they had to die."
  "Am I like that?"
  "You're more like a teenager. You didn't grow as much as a king."
  "Do I look like a teenager? Is my hair too long?"
  "Yes."
  I realize then that our castle is close to the shop of an artisan who
cuts hair. I don't need to send a messenger, pick up a broad ax or saddle a
steed. I can just walk out and get a trim.








MY ABSENT FATHER

  She asks me if I miss my father, and I say, "Yes, sometimes."
  She's known from an early age that she's never met my father because he's
not around. That is, he's not around on Earth.
  "Do you miss him a lot?" she asks.
  "Not a lot."
  "Why not?"
  I have mixed feelings, but I don't want to say that. My father was very
present in my life, and when he left for good, I wasn't totally unhappy. But
that wouldn't make sense. "He passed quite a while ago," I say.
  "What did he look like?"
  "He had gray hair."
  "Like you. Your hair is silver."
  Perhaps she's saying she doesn't need to meet my father, because she has
me, and I look like him. The thing is, I look like my mother, not my father.
  "He really liked children," I say.
  I don't say that he liked children in the wrong way.
  "But he never saw me."
  She means that if he'd seen her, he would have liked her. I can't argue
with that.
  Later, I ask my wife if our daughter is really curious about my father,
or if she's just worried that Iım going to pass away and no one will be
around to take care of her.
 "She asks if I miss my father, too," she says.