Acho que eu poderia viver com os animais, eles são tão plácidos e reservados,
Eu esbarro e os observo longamente.
Eles não suam nem se queixam de sua condição.
Não ficam acordados nas trevas nem lamentam seus pecados,
Não me enjoam discutindo seu dever com Deus,
Nem um está insatisfeito, nem um está demente com a mania de possuir coisas,
Nem um se ajoelha ao outro, nem à espécie que viveu milhares de anos atrás,
Nem um é respeitável ou infeliz sobre toda a terra.
Então eles me mostram suas relações comigo e eu as aceito,
Eles me trazem sinais de mim mesmo,
Eles os evidenciam francamente em sua posse.
Me pergunto onde conseguem esses sinais,
Passei por lá há longas eras e negligentemente os larguei?
[...]
Ants are not fond of margarine.
Like us they prefer
Butter.
They do not have cholesterol problems
because as yet they do not own TVs.
For centuries
they have toiled in order that they might be able to
take a night off and watch the Northern Lights which
are their version of canned laughter.
They hate picnics
but feel compelled by folklore to attend them
or at minimum do a drive by chicken leg grab.
Their
Queen is a pain in the ass.
They don’t love her but
without her they would be common, so they serve her.
She is an insatiable nymphomaniac but they don’t
hold that against her trying instead to stay busy with work.
Forgotten ancient languages have been genetically
imprinted in them at birth and they say things they
don’t understand.
Like us they often make bad marriages.
But because of their outstanding physical prowess
and humility there is seldom cause for divorce.
They
haven’t read the great philosophers but they know them
Innately.
They love the flowers of Spring and lacking
perspective eagerly run all over them.
They
are much like us.
They are nudists because puritanism
has not invaded their genetic code, it does not
affect their work ethic and each ant loves its own body.
Therefore they don’t care about go-go boots and
sandals.
Like us, Ants are driven by their hearts and pretend
that it is all in the name of duty.
Ants are never impulsive.
when they laugh, the gardens of old maids tremble.
Ants
love to dance but lack a sense of rhythm so
they gave it up when Homer scorned them.
Rain is their
sensuality.
It makes them feel delirious and late.
Quivering
and running between rain drops to their fate.
Coming home is terrible
whether the dogs lick your face or not;
whether you have a wife
or just a wife-shaped loneliness waiting for you.
Coming home is terribly lonely,
so that you think
of the oppressive barometric pressure
back where you have just come from
with fondness,
because everything’s worse
once you’re home.
You think of the vermin
clinging to the grass stalks,
long hours on the road,
roadside assistance and ice creams,
and the peculiar shapes of
certain clouds and silences
with longing because you did not want to return.
Coming home is
just awful.
And the home-style silences and clouds
contribute to nothing
but the general malaise.
Clouds, such as they are,
are in fact suspect,
and made from a different material
than those you left behind.
You yourself were cut
from a different cloudy cloth,
returned,
remaindered,
ill-met by moonlight,
unhappy to be back,
slack in all the wrong spots,
seamy suit of clothes
dishrag-ratty, worn.
You return home
moon-landed, foreign;
the Earth’s gravitational pull
an effort now redoubled,
dragging your shoelaces loose
and your shoulders
etching deeper the stanza
of worry on your forehead.
You return home deepened,
a parched well linked to tomorrow
by a frail strand of…
Anyway…
You sigh into the onslaught of identical days.
One might as well, at a time…
Well…
Anyway…
You’re back.
The sun goes up and down
like a tired whore,
the weather immobile
like a broken limb
while you just keep getting older.
Nothing moves but
the shifting tides of salt in your body.
Your vision blears.
You carry your weather with you,
the big blue whale,
a skeletal darkness.
You come back
with X-ray vision.
Your eyes have become a hunger.
You come home with your mutant gifts
to a house of bone.
Everything you see now,
all of it: bone.