ANTHROPOLOGY HAD BEEN WAITING FOREVER

The jungles deep with shadow,

what did the first man inherit from protomen ---

      his kin,

            inevitably,

                  his neighbors?

Turtles sunning on a gravel bar,

were there derelicts among the urmen,

      antiheros,

            broken spirits,

                  ironists?

Was that before or after music was discovered,

laughter had a name,

certain words acquired a secret weight,

the first girl lifted her arms in dance?

Osprey nesting high in the trees,

when first were barbarians at a gate,

      was a permissive society condemned,

            a dailiness of the years observed,

                  a man overcome by his heritage?

The sedge growing purple at dusk,           

who first conceptualized mediocrity,

      recognized the persistence of vulgarity,

            grew alarmed at his yearnings,

                  identified a platitude?

Was that before a man first concluded

that only reason can correct reason’s errors,

or after he woke to a fatuous day,

feared for all men?  








AND A PRODIGY OF THE VIOLIN

Miscellaneous persons ---

Galileo, Johnny Appleseed, Ghandi,

an enemy of the people exercising free speech ---

persons wander the keeps ---

John D Rockefeller, Socrates, Adonis,

the movie star who climbed Kilimanjaro ---        

the keeps of Woodrow’s head  ---

Genghis Khan, Proust, the Venus de Milo,

a pioneer woman who died on the Oregon Trail.