Ecco la fiera

When the dead are cutting down the quick,
A mind can taste water, if it tries. Some

People you can’t write about, unless
You disguise them enough. Some people

Can’t be shown who can’t see themselves
Unless they can’t see themselves, since

All they can see is not seeing themselves,
And insight, like blindness, is a hazard

In hazard’s original meaning, as well. It’s not
The ideas of the feral mind that should

Interest you. A mind on its own only roams
So far. It’s the hubris of a tamed, pack mind

Gone back, half back, to roaming alone
And wild that should interest you, child—

Not how far it goes, how deep into anything
Others haven’t already found and nosed

Around, but how it can disappear there,
Stay without a command to stay or to go,

Survive on its own there, never come home.
The midden became the forest once

The scorched woods were chained, owned
And forbidden. It’s the arrant arrogance

In the eye of the stray that slinks away
And back to sink into the lost you tossed.

But that’s not what you need to learn today.
Pretend, as you digest this, that you are

A three-part amalgamation of mind
And soul and beast. If the soul, poor soul, is

The noblest component, the beast is not
The worst. And if the beast is most natural,

Nor is the mind the least. There’s confusion
And paradox in here, everywhere you turn,

Because the wavelengths that illuminate
Tangled weeds can count themselves

Among the weeds, and counting is one
Kind of weed. You see? On the dung hill

Domesticated creatures made to try to leave
Behind, the wildflowers begin to breathe,

And the beetles of imperfect eternal return
Return and turn into many grubs good to eat.

I see your shadow loping over the hill, then
Vanishing. I hear your personal, odd howling.

Can you see yourself, yet? Can you taste
Water, yet? Will you yet hazard a drink?