Man’s Machines

                                                    Robert Ronnow
                                     Communicating the Bird

                  Man's Machines

Might as well go to market.
Gather money, kindling. The economy
scary, debt deep, winter coming. Reminds
me of my youth, cold poor and scared
but living truth? Shit. Never
have I understood life's meaning,
significance. Not to say there is no purpose
necessarily, just I don't immediately get it.

Other hand, if you don't think too deeply
about death, this being but a dream, sleep
of a god snoring with apnea or whose alarm
goes off, wakes up for work, spring and expecting
spring's good as it gets. Rhodora in winter
completely forgets what its blossoms looked
like, how attractive to bees and flies!
It’s probably healthy that everything dies.

The dire economy can bring us together
or lead us to war. It's cold then warm. Your lover
doesn't write letters anymore giving
thanks or encouragement.
Friends never really know each other,
nemesis. Just as it is impossible to say
what you mean, your closest lover's near but
external, forever. You're alone.

More than ever men have one mind
and finding it's as easy as flicking on the
tv, huckleberry, but that always was
the problem. We march to war in rows and back
in columns. Learning who you actually are
is difficult as sitting still
ten minutes without a thought or want.
Nothing to say. Nothing to do.

Interior solitude, imperative belonging.
Repetitive dreaming. Until you draw
a circle with a dot
at the center. Stop. Full stop.
On a dry rocky ridge, hot
or in a frozen swamp. One heron
and yourself. It is possible to hear
not far, a car, a train, a plane.