O world of tangled troubles,
tribes, flags and furies,
with drought-full summers,
winters bleeding into April,
swampy back roads,
fumy asphalt city streets…
I want to love you!
 
I want to love you with the outstretched
arms of the Chilean petroglyph man,
300 feet of him reaching out to you, to us,
arms stretched like a horizontal road to nowhere,
body spread open, bare,
his back against your rough soil
shouting his message to the sky:
I am here!
I am here!
 
World!  O!
I want to love you
as the ice caps melt,
economies crash
and fire devours forests.
I want to love you like the
geoglyphs dug into your soil
thousands of years ago,
love you like the Atacama Giant,
his spiked hair grabbing moonlight
pointing the way to the seasons,
love you like the white horse glyphs of England,
galloping on ancient hillsides;
run with them into the future.
                        

Once the battle is won
we will review,
reimagine, renew,
let the fire burn and burn
till it is out,
spread the ash on the depleted ground.
 
We will remove old robes,
lay aside old skeins,
pour fresh wine into cool containers
and toast the new day.
 
Consciousness affecting matter
we will make a different world,
delete the old rules
the old religions
and dream into being
things we can agree on,
signs we can all recognize,
rhythms moving us like gentle waves,
a slow dance with a good partner
we will move together
a reunited tribe,
none caring about the past,
the colors,
the countries.
 
Questions answered,
the long debate at rest,
the hard problem solved
we will clean this planet up
from its toxic spill of narcissism,
capitalism,
voyeurism,
waste and waste and waste and waste
and sing in the pastel dawn.
                        

The battle had been long.
 
The troops gathered
under the shade of the canopy
deflated but not defeated.
 
The ‘60s were dead, dead for years
but these warriors kept the flame
in poem and song and heart,
ideals held close,
the gems of their generation,
the crux, the core spoken aloud
as September’s sun beat down.
 
They mustered together
perhaps for the last time
feeling time was indeed short
what with
Fukushima spewing
terrorists and refugees roaming,
climate upside down
too hot
too wet
forests and animals burning,
rights always in the balance,
politicians still dishonest,
and these soldiers of veracity looked tired,
wary,
wanted something to change,
most things,
but dared not hope,
dared only to keep their anger
their passion
their love for each other.
 
And then I saw
the tent become a tabernacle
as holy as the ones on the plains of Moreh
where Abraham sought God and prayed,
as the words of the Beats
raised up to Source
telling their tales,
understanding victory was in the fight
not the outcome,
keeping the covenant as best they could
creating their truth and beauty,
loving as hard as poets dare.

Inspired by a gathering of Beat poets in the fall of 2021.