Every/body Electric

Yippie sons of senators abandon
their cappuccino watering
holes to squat
like quasar-dazed astronauts
theta bopping round the tit
of nuclear Vesuvius
    40 miles from Troy
    60 from Sat Sop
where the sky tears acid.
Enough…
I submit
are we
not lovers
of the difficult
like Skydeer
and Maximus
cakewalking
with night
undoing our ignorance
    of mourning
the fierce
brevity
of things.
    As all is not
vanity
    of grand piano
mysteries
when earthquake free
of that man
who would put
    his price
on its waterfalls
singing
    to turbulent skies.  II
 
Like Maximus haloed from smoke-hangover
        Skydeer pilots
    through stratocumulus
    feathered with tracks
        of sparking crows
and solitude invites us
        to light that great fire
    we dream of: wake up
        that amorphous hermit within us.
        Thus squadrons of geese
        point homeward
     for theta
        is everywhere
        as the universe
        is our body electric
        the quintessential
        green uterus blooming
     in forest:
    note the habitat
     ovum and seed
     magnetic
     in Tathagata light:
    here, trillium
     raises its regal head
     while humming birds
        float
     on windmills of sound
     as if wings could father
     that whirlwind
     following
     our Koans:
        yet ensconced on mint-
     scented winds, we light
     the great fire
     that frees our bodies clear of eye.      III
 
     Olympia 1976
    a time of mutual need
after scramble for strawberries
     Thus spoke Roshi: "When a nation
     is without magic,
     look for alchemy
to begin in its slum".
Next, recall that joyful noise
     of the cricket.
With incense at lotus foot
say no to thunder.
        Imagine there’s no tomorrow
and embrace the dream wheel
     of all nations    
while preening on a cheek
        of cherry blossom;
     imagine ourselves
as bodies of light
     propelled
at such velocities
     only the
     compassionate
     understand OM = MC2
        where one imagines
a global village
of nimbus shrouded citi-zens
     a congress of hermits
     dedicated to sanity
     and the proposition
     that together
     we can whisper a rainbow,
     if we recall
     as aquinas suggests
     "Electricity
         has made angels of us all."