Even Bees Would Be Jealous

Out west, the grass lacks firefly flash;
Scrub oaks host ravens at sundown.

It’s forever rich to exist
In country that didn’t exist

For the Old World’s geometers,
For poets of antiquity,

Thinking in words that weren’t around
In this form in any language

When the Axial Age sages,
Metaphysicians, and prophets,

Strove to articulate the ways
They understood the whole, wide world.

These species of trees, these insects,
This grass whispering to my feet,

This language, these tools, these ruins
Of everything once eternal,

All of it would have to be strange,
Too strange for poetry, for dreams,

For them, except my dreams themselves,
Familiar wishes and failures

To learn from history, to find
Peace in this latter day Wu Cheng.