A thousand lacewings caress
the bare black skin of the river.

Overhead, the last fat cruisers of spring’s rain
steam across the ocean of sky
toward a crash in the mountains that will exhaust them
deliciously
and have no name.

The bay trees swing their unharvested laurels
in the breeze, lending the sleepy air their hope
for the future.

A hoary blue heron camels through the hyacinth,
one eye on the watery canals and one
to us across the river,
equally intent.

The world has been crafted entirely for our delight.

…

But that’s wrong. Isn’t it.

That’s the root of ugly shopping malls and
flavorless television.

The world made us, painstakingly, in a billion year forge.

Given a dozen millennia, we make lenses and spacecraft and music.

And our slow disaster on the world
makes
Volcanoes
blush.