Dear friends, I have been diagnosed
With Chaosmosis—
My mind can take no more chaos.
I am saturated with the world.
Symptoms include
Feeling infected with the coronavirus,
Your plane has been shot down,
Your helicopter crashed into a hill,
You have cancer and a parasite
Created by chaos eroding the margins
Of just feeling alive,
And the earth in global crisis,
Collapsing to our selfish ignoring.
So far there are no treatments
For Chaosmosis,
Except for symptomatic drugs,
Drugs that leaves you numb,
With a gaze like a flame
Or like an endless wave in space.
Image of the imageless, like an impact crater.

All our different languages
Yet trees, grasses and stones
Have the same vocabulary;
Blowing snow and mountain pines
Express a shared language;
Cresting waves and rippling dunes
Breathe the same breath in speech.
All our different languages
You’d think the earth
Could have translated hate
Into the music of a wild meadow,
And washed away any semblance
In the waves of our lakes…
You’d think we at least
Could have picked up a few
Beach stones and memorized
Each other’s faces without words.

This is a poem that is groundless
And without adornments, the lines
Expertly spaced like plain boards
As though they weren’t there at all.
The poem levels the surroundings
Without drawing attention
To either remoteness or proximity.
You aren’t distracted by pretense
And breathe evenly over the boards,
Going through one door to another,
Sure of your steps, unconcerned,
Even taking the art for granted
By not inspecting its craft,
Remembering only later in traffic,
The peace of such a pure house.