Obscurities

You look down at the sidewalk,
perceptive eyes picking minute
details out of an otherwise
indiscriminate haze:

fissures in the smooth surface,
dates inscribed with jagged edges,
little critters crawling on
what must be a vast plane for them.

You look at the sidewalk
and see something more complex.

You bend the rigid metal of the
analytic with what you
envision in a simple glance.

You are not afraid to embrace obscurity.
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I read a book by an author
nobody seems to have heard,
dust(y) jacket in mint condition
though it's been a quarter century.

Only two others have checked it
out, the last a decade ago,
and I can't figure out why:

Yes, the prose is intricate,
even overwrought in spots--
an effect of trying too hard--

but whole passages are somehow
etched into my flesh, consequence
of undaunted beauty and
boundless creativity.

I wonder, as I set the book
down and break to decompress,
if it because the words are
bricks through windows of
complacency that people
turn away, afraid.
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I am sitting in a nursing home
room, staring a woman I've
known my entire life who
now, somehow, seems alien.

She calls me John in a frail
voice, though that's not my name,
and I begin believing this
lack of recognition to be mutual.

Her body is even different:
waif-like, with a gaunt face
overwhelmed by cerulean saucers
that gaze absently in every
direction.

I wonder when she is going to die,
even as we gaze at each other
for a second of
bittersweet understanding.

I want her to live;
of course I want her to live!
Yet I don't want this disease
to push her further into this
grotesque obscurity.
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We look at the little flower,
blooming, as rays of sun
peak through clouds, and
wonder:

why are we destroying life,
so beautiful?

why are we fixated on destruction?

It's seems we don't care about
this blooming anymore, tired
of sitting at canvas and putting
little brushstrokes down to
finish our masterpiece.

We've accomplished so much,
gone so far.

Buildings stretch toward
the heavens in metallic glory.

And yet, we watch this
blooming and it has no
affect on us, same droll look
as we worry about our
dispossession.

The very planet that
cradled our civilizations,
Nature, is slowly falling
out of consciousness, falling,
fast.

Can we survive if we lose it all?