the earth stands

                                                                               David McLean


                                        
                                           the earth stands pretending to be part of a plenum,

                                           though it is stuffed full of us, all stitched together

                                           from gappy absences we never noticed,

                                           or hoped to notice, part of evolution's

                                           stringent terms of service.

 

                                          we are not as wise as a dog, who threatens

                                                     leaves and birds and friends and strangers,

                                                     and other dogs in particular, just for the insolence

                                                     and sheer impertinence of generally speaking

                                                     daring to exist, because behaving otherwise

                                                     would be ridiculous, and some things a dog

                                                     just has to do although he lives his silence better

                                                     than we, and has nothing much to prove.

 

                                                    the earth stands still full of worlds and observable

                                                    nonsense that our being put there, fatuous

                                                    absences where childhoods might have been.

 

                                                    all our faults are our own fault for persisting

                                                    with them, living in all the missing, the debility,

                                                    the disease, as if we were homesick,

                                                    and nevertheless deserving of our dreams.

 

                                                    the only possible god i might ever respect

                                          would be Sartre's old black lady with no face

                                          or name, no place in modernity, no promised

                                          eternity but a profound respect for epistemology:

                                          the only sin would be to believe in her,

                                          the only duty to believe in her absences better