Disappearances


You say we see only
what we believe in
and all that we see
mirrors what we are.

Bison and eagle,
passenger pigeons,
dodo, iguana,
the trees' disappearance --

Do they go away
because we grow too tame?
Do we no longer believe in
what we cannot own?

Hand-carved wooden spoons and hand-broidered hems --
Where is the art in our daily life?
Where are our cathedrals
that sing to the sky?
Are we so small and weak
we no longer create --
or too small and weak
to let others be great?


The invisible man at the desk next door
is then the invisible man on the street
and then he's the body fished out of a river
that may or may not make the paper's back sheet.


Do we no longer have people inside of us?
Or have we stopped believing "human beings" exist?

 


Poems