The Ninety-Third Psalm

Up in the ponderosas,
I’m surprised by a golden

Tanager, it looks like, or
At least that’s the term that pops

Immediately to mind.
What’s a South American

Species doing in these woods?
I’d bet I’m wrong, but it’s gone

Before I can see it well.
Ah, seeing. The world stands firm,

Not to be shaken, and yet
It moves in so many ways

We have to invent beings
To secure its foundations.

Our bipedal species sways
Unsteadily on two paws,

Which does free the other two
To devise fine inventions,

But at the cost of the loss
Of stability, of sense

Of security, even
Standing on level meadows.

It’s a tightrope, this planet,
For all of us hand-wavers,

Who are no good at climbing,
Only at making new things.

Fetishes of certainty
Come of such uncertainty,

Stabilizing deities
As flashes of gold and wings.