I Am a Little World Made Cunningly

Thou Unreadable,

how weighty your thoughts

seem to me, how numerous

along your mind’s abacus.

I don’t suppose I look like you.

A man?  A panda,

a smiling panda is strung up

in the Elm & it startles

me to see that shape dangling

from the tree, upright & clothed

whose binomial name I memorized

for extra credit in grammar

school. My mind’s a bag of miscellany.

How would it all end in that fierce

sizzling brimstone end that has continually

been predicted for the world?

Here’s the world again.

Top of the morning to you,

birthday boy turned six. An inflatable

house for kids to bounce in. How they line up

in their tender socks

entering, exiting their wondrous pre-fab

future.  Ailuropoda melanoleuca. Silly head

of papier-mâché. A bat to thrash

its chest crowded with candy necklaces

& pencils. They bash & wallop

& tip the thing over

for the shiny foil drops, the head

emptied out of its beautiful thoughts.

I kneel & am still, Lord, & for this

I am suspicious of myself.