Poetry

V1
The Eastham Turnip turned its feathers toward the sun
And said to her friends
Here’s the day that I am done
Sitting like Buddha on my root in the Earth
I want nothing less, nothing less, than rebirth.

V2
It’s purple it’s yellow
Takes two years to grow,
The soil that feeds it is new as we know
Left here by a glacier that created this shore
It’s yellow, it’s mellow
Who could ask for anything more.
Whoa, oh, oh, oh, oh

Chorus
It’s stew for you, it’s steam that we wish
We want nothing more than to end in a dish
After the first frost we get richer and sweet
Let us grace your table
A thanksgiving treat.

V3
“Stay for a while in this sacred ground
The winter is coming
And we all stay around
Spring and then Summer is the time that we play,”
But “No” said the turnip,
“Today is my day.”
Whoa, oh, oh, oh, oh

Chorus

V4
This turnip was lifted from the earth to the air,
Her feathers were plucked off, her essence was bare
Washed by a hose as she road in a truck.
To be prized down in Eastham
Is a turnips best luck
Whoa, oh, oh, oh, oh

Chorus

I am here
Caught in the headlights
Frightened and calm
Not knowing where best to run
But sure I can get there
Well, mostly sure.

It’s that damn cat I bet
The one with the green collar
That tasted so good
And then those signs springing up everywhere
With pictures of her!
Like mushrooms after rain
Stapled to every tree it seemed
Saying the foolish thing was missing.

Missing?
You mean consumed, my suppliers
I know where she is
Just check the scat.

And yes, I see you too
I see you all the time
You’re in my dreams
And in my myths
As I’m in yours,
Friends all around
Right?
So turn off the damn lights
And let’s slide into the woods together.
© B.R.Taub, 10/07

I asked the gods, the ones I don’t believe in,
And the muses, who I’ve met personally,
To bring me the gifts I don’t deserve.
First came the bird songs
Which greeted me this morning
Well before the Earth leaned into the sun,
The scratching of mice raiding the larder
The dog’s moist nose sniffing my face
Bodily functions I take for granted
Standing, sitting, seeing, walking.
The gift of toothbrushes and running water
All before coffee, that exotic brown seed
Harvested by the hands of brown men
Traveling across seas and continents
From Africa, South America, and Hawaii
From Ethiopia, Peru, and Sumatra
Each bean a blessing,
The names of nations prayers for peace.
Daring to step outside.
The sound of morning bells
The riot of colors
Plants reaching for clouds
Aware they too
Are moving with the aid of wind.
Did I mention the air itself?
The miracle of breath
Oxygen molecules traveling along arterial rivers
Depositing their cargo amongst millions of small cellular entities
That extract the very essence of life
And give back the carbonic elements
That plants feed on.
When did the word purple become a phrase of praise?
And where did all those prayer flags waving in the breeze come from?
The branches of trees bouncing as birds land and lift off from them
The spruce tree
The shed filled with tools and other implements of wonder
Forgotten photographs
Long unused sports equipment
The evidence of creatures who’ve built nests in drawers
Where they have wintered and reproduced
Remembering just now that these eyes are open
That there really is light, and sight. and joy
Just sitting.

There had been small craft advisories,
Their boats were fewer,
Seas ran five to eight feet
With variable winds out of the northeast
Gusting to forty knots
Moving with the pod
Warm southern waters flowed into the currents.
As the storm abated and seas subside
We pass Provincetown
‘Round the horn
Passed the buoy
Into the sensations of the bay
Seas two to four feet
Sun obscured and waters warm
Echoes echo over the distances
Off the top and bottom
The floor and the air
Wave action pushing me toward land
Been in these waters before.
Now slightly disoriented
Separated from the group
In too shallow water
The waves are foamy
Something’s not right
Sensing hazard
The tides confusing
I bottom out
Helpless and alone
Sand below and around me
Socked in on my belly
I do not wrestle
I die, fin up,
Without struggle,
Resigned on the shore.

Gospel of the Redwoods – A Song
V1.

When the poet asked the redwoods

About their long past lives

They laughed so hard their seed cones

Came afallin’ from the skies

We never die, said the mothers,

To the representatives of youth

Our roots they keep on growing

New generations of the same old me

And when we fall tall over

We’re still standing, don’t you see.

Chorus:

We told this to the Yurok

And they quickly understood

No beginnings and no endings

Ever conscious, ever wood.

V2.

And what I asked of happiness

Are you only old and wide

Or is there something more to know 

Of what goes on inside?

And again the mighty redwoods laughed

From their roots up to their roof

You humans are such dizzy folk

We’re not quite sure you’d know the truth

Our branches are in love with light

We’re earthly bound and heaven sent

Surrounded by our friends and kin

We see and feel without lament.

Chorus

V3.
You know of height, you know of light
In each of which you take delight
You feel some things I’ll never know
You know the grounds on which you grow
You know of weight and health and kin
You never stop nor quite begin
You’re a continuum of life and pleasure 
A gift for which there is no measure
Not in weeks, not days or nights
You are the mighty redwoods, 
Lovely objects of delight.

Chorus

V4.
Our talk then turned to consciousness
And I’d much more to ask
As I tried to wrap my mind ‘round them 
and failed in this task.
“I weigh 500 tons,” one said, 
“Yet feel quite light and thin
I’m tall and straight and happy
When I play with the north wind
I stand erect on one tap root
And dance with moons and stars
And point the compass of my passions
Toward Venus and toward Mars.

Chorus

On a humid, dark, cloudy summer night,
Temperature still in the high seventies,
Streetlights not working,
I step from my car as a huge fluttering bug
Flies smack into my lips.
I do not see it.
I know it is not a moth or mosquito,
More a furry flying beetle of some sort.
And just as I do not see it, I do not hear it.
Rather I feel its flutter and the soft thud
As it crashes straight into the very center of my closed mouth,
Smack in the middle of my pressed lips.
I blow and brush it away quickly,
Feeling its dimensions only slightly.
I respond in surprise and shock,
But without fear or disgust.
I know at once that I have been sweetly touched
Not assaulted or attacked.
And though my rational mind recognizes it as probability expressed
A happenstance of fate,
A random intersection of invertebrate and human,
I am aware instantly of having been kissed by a beautiful stranger,
A princess living in the body of a bug,
The light but explicit tap tap tap of god’s finger
Calling forth my attention

“Hey you,” the bug commands with her furry kiss,
“Wake up, we’re in this together, man.
Live life fully aware
And appreciative of me,
Fly around in the muggy dark night
Kissing strangers with me
Let’s be in each other’s company as much as we can bear.”

I dream that night I stand beside the rushing waters
Of a mountain stream which calls to me,
Bids me enter,
To be pulled along in the frightening, exciting, inexorable flow to the sea.
I imagine being in the water.
I imagine being water.
I am a furry bug
I kiss your lips.

There are many reasons
To travel to Egypt,
One of which is to inquire of the Sphinx,
”What should a man do?”
The instructions you are given specify only that you inquire
And make note of what you next perceive.
How you inquire is up to you.
 
1.

Approaching from the south
On your magnificent white steed
The sphinx faces east
To greet the sun, to thank the Nile
As it has every day
For over 5000 years
Over a million sunrises.
A lucky man may see one
A persistent man many
The same sun for 100 generations
Rises up and exposes the sphinx.

 
The steed and the man approach as close as possible
Close enough to see her damaged nose
Her whiskers twitching in the wind from the south
She can smell you before she sees you,
The man with the question.
It is noisy, you can hear the adjacent city
Horns, sirens, the sounds of other horses, camels, asses, humans, flies
You sit your mount hoping for the moment.
The constant Sahara stops whistling and biting your face
Then as if bidden, for no apparent reason,
The wind subsides, and the city stands still.

So you reach out to her, for the iron is hot
And say out loud, loud enough for a deaf sphinx to hear,
”What should a man do, Sphinx?”
And then you listen.
The high shriek of a hunting bird comes first
Then the song of many birds
Had they always been singing and you just
Didn’t hear them?
Or had their song just arisen?
You may count twenty thousand new suns
And still you will not know
Although it is now a little clearer what a man should do.
 
2.

Approaching from the north
On foot, as close as you can
Close enough to see her damaged nose
The sound of a muezzin calling
Signals the time to stop and be still.
A chorus of male voices joins in the chanting
Then another caller calls
And more chanters respond
All vowels emerging from the swollen gut of the soiled city
Saccharine, sacred
It is all too real
You must sit down in wonder
Awaiting quiet
Aware of the ancient cemetery
The clatter of camel hooves
The voices of your kin
When all of a sudden, and for no apparent reason,
But as you knew it must,
The hoof beats cease
The chanting ceases
The wagon wheels stop turning, stop grinding
The wind subsides,
And the city is still.
So you say out loud, loud enough so the sphinx may hear,
”What should a man do, Sphinx?”
And the voice of a young boy in a silenced carriage
Says,”Baba.  Baba.”
 
Did you hear that, Baba?
You may count your twenty thousand new suns
And still you cannot know
Although it is now a little clearer
what a man should do.

During the night a warm front
Passes over the frozen snowpack
And with it a sense of hope
And forbearance
Of limited visibility
Thickened air
And the pregnant
Odors captured in foggy droplets
That wolves and hunters know
Air warmer than the earth
Cats mewling
As we are mewling
In darkened bedrooms
Resentment, regret, and sorrow
All now like snow on the ground
Hidden in the wondrous fog

We stones don’t speak very loudly
Start there.
And although we can yelp and scrape
And bang into one another as well and as loudly as most matter you’d know of
The fact is that stones are mostly quiet
Introverted some would say
Not like creatures with their mouths open and life cycles measured in milliseconds
No, we go back before the stone age, waaay back,
Part of the molten age
After the gas age
When all was one blended brand
Before the Great Differentiation
Before air, before water.
Before I was whole
Before I was broke
Mostly quiet
Often wet
Rolling a lot and for a long time
And getting better at it
On a beach somewhere
Recently deposited
After many long journeys
Well rounded
Attuned
Mobile
Maybe even curious by now
Aware of the heat of the sun
And the cool of the night
The soft of the sand
And the soft of the hand
That lifts me
And numbers of my kin
And brings us to something called home
And arranges us he says
In some design he says
That is absolutely unintelligible to us.
But it is nice to be resting again
And I seem to be in contact with other stones
Who also came home with me
From the beach.
I like change
And I like rest.
And just bein’ a stone is alright with me.

I live among barbarians
People who fart at the dining room table
People who eat cows
And kick dogs
Business account executives
Wasting the gift of time
Negotiating abstractions
People living apart from one another

I hide from them
In the woods and the dunes
In alleyways and tents
Trying to move in obscurity and safety
To not rattle the rows and rows of opened cages
To not awaken their eager indifferent war machines
Their hungover stupors
Their trigger happy play
To not awaken their collective anger
And mythic gods
To not care about tit contour shaping brassieres
Golf scores
Relative wealth
Some daily disaster that passes as news
While all that is good and free is ignored,
Taken for granted, not acknowledged
Not honored
Not even seen.
Life among the barbarians

© 2016