TOTEM

Huge shag sinks the horizon. The massive head crowns
the seven stars of his constellation then drops back
to earth, leaving his image in the sky. Lopes off
to claw his dinner from a stream or he might sit
and munch on berries—a furred philosopher minding
a universe as vast as he is to the fruit.
After the long narcosis of winter this refined poet
of brute strength takes the delicacy of spring in dainty
glacier lilies, his entrée to a banquet summer long.

A fiercely solitary animal he needs no one,
not even his kin. Yet for six weeks a year
he'll be at peace with just one other since
nature tells him there's no harm to hurt in making love.
Otherwise he is alone and wants it so. But there are
fears that cumber him at times like flies bothering
a fresh kill and then he runs for cover: to the
security of being touched all round,
a huddle in the faith of density.

Great bear, my friend, I know the secret
that drew the contour of dejection when on all fours:
there is a ferocity of sadness in your shape.
Is it the long sleep of winter in a cave of nightmares;
is it that only your own kind would kill you;
or perhaps too much in touch with your own company?
You and I have much in common, you plantigrade horribilis.
We both have no natural enemy except man.

When they could not still their awe they mocked their terror
by chaining this solitary samson to a stake and mobbed
him with packs of snarling cowardice.
Or made him a circus eunuch with a skirt padding
a bicycle to laughter. And when there's no other reason
they can always cage him on a tourist trail or in a zoo
where he paces frustration up and down, tongue lolling,
without a sound, unkempt, fur dulled, his awe begging
for nuts. And he'll bear it—even Goethe's fury
in Lili's park where he was a mere toy for sex.
Man must degrade when there is no surrender.

But language saved you homage:
you give the light to children and foster growth;
you're a proud posture and firm support; you bring
gifts, endure suffering and title character. You bear.

Alone on a hill he sniffs the air and whoofs at nothing;
then rises moonstruck into the night and hunts with Diana
in the sky, in secret, with his rough coat of solitude.
You cannot be broken or dispelled; the gods set you
in jewels for earth's season. You are my sad strength,
the totem of my anger. You bear witness to my penitence.

GEM

An opal should be flat on the bottom
and not set too deeply in the bezel.
Let it protrude a little, like a pea,
leave it round and simply polished.
The best ones have a white beam
that traverses their bodies and
that shines bright near a candle
but pales in the light of day.

I once owned such an Elementary Stone:
the white milkbeam the sky,
the small yellow flame, fire,
the small blue spot, water,
the other dark corner, black earth.
Such a one will reflect
any repercussion of light,
especially if you're standing under a roof
as I was that day
sailing past Seram with respectable people.

And the stone showed
the green trees on shore,
the boatmen moving behind,
the faces of my companions next to me.

Floating beneath the sun on Piru Bay
I had all I called world
in a jewel on my hand.

To see Seram again in an opal,
the days when I still had eyes.

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