I See Too Little Too Much

I see a shade on the window of the world,
and it is drawn

I see a plow in the fertile skin of the earth
and it is still

I see a Bible on the pulpit of peace and it is not
earmarked anywhere, for anything

I see a novel in the corner, unpublished, unread
an undreamt dream

which should be its title

I see a nurse on the floor in the hall
and everyone is buzzing

I see a dumpster full of truths, and a
crow picking one over

I see a group of monkeys hammering away at
pieces of granite and marble, and I see that they have written
on headstones everything ever written in The New York Times
another cosmological argument for the tyranny of nothing

I see a child walking down the sidewalk and
there are no crossing guards or warning lights, no signs
saying Don’t Walk or Go Back or Don’t Believe a
Word They Tell You

And I hear the trees screaming in the woodstove
and the cow moaning behind my freezer door

I see eviction notices posted over the doors
of bluebird houses, and lawnmower
tracks through the lilies of the field where there
is toil and vortex spin

And I see a yacht sinking on a golf green
or the fate of nations falling into a cup
with one wicked putt

I hear a poet in a café who has given up
words, and words that have given up meaning
and histories that are just Kuhnian paradigms
and there is nothing like a Platonic form

And suddenly there is a dawn I see with my eyes closed and a dusk I can
hear in a shock wave

And I see Jesus moving in a tomb and a Buddha that is skinny
and a Mohammed that never touched a sword
and that if the tomb is not empty there is nothing
that will stop the Adam-splitting begun in the
chambers of the bomb once it falls
splitting the very stars from my vision

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Hearings from the House

Sir, you have testified that
we must alleviate the suffering
of a woman you just said cannot suffer.

Sir, you have just said that
she was at 26 so sick
that she had a heart
attack, and yet,
after 15 years, the only way
this sickly woman will now die is to kill her.

In fact, sir, you’ll note that she is so frail, as
you say
12 days of starvation and dehydration
have not killed her. Healthy people
die sooner.

Sir, you have further testified
that she won’t suffer
yet you have this week given
her morphine
twice
for the pain you have sworn
she cannot feel.
If in dying she does not suffer
how then does she in living?

Or is it you who suffers?
Are you the one who needs
relief?

This is not a story about life.
It’s one of love.
The love of parents for their child.
The honor they give her by feeding her;
by trying to rescue her; to give her life
meaning, purpose, interest. Perhaps she
is oblivious. But who is harmed, if she is
in fact unconscious?
(Or to hell with their Catholic compassion?)

It is not a story about a husband who loves his wife
or her right to die. For we do not
know her wish; we only know his, which
took him years to tell us, and is different
than when all this began.
His wish is that she must die,
so he can get on with his life with
some other woman.

She would want that.
He says.

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Related essays (at Contratimes): A Foolish Consistency, A Central (Yet Not Comedic) Irony

Related links: Terri Schiavo: A Life That Mattered And Still Matters