By Andrew H. Oerke
Each stone sulks in the shackles of its weight,
but the temple�s clear about its yen for the sun.
Here, scaffolds reached their limits, and hustlers rustle
tourists into the camera�s black dungeon,
where images stamp the matrix of remembrance
with the deadly force of fact that always
changes the more it stays the same, selah.
Although dawn has its share of alarm clocks,
dozens of Buddhas were summoned to point
perpendicularly through the notion of a spindle,
or index finger, to see which way is up and
the wind is blowing, and to wake Nirvana on time.
Every morning, when dawn sets up to warble,
the temple lifts its baton and impugns
the times, while conducting the birds gargling mantras.
Ya, the temple spirals out of the doughnut
of itself every dawn. It is World War I
Kaiser Wilhelm helmet calling for attention
like a warthog�s tail pointing straight up.
It broadcasts the fundamental nothing
that isn�t there, and the nothing that is and is
gathered around it like a four winds� cloud of disciples.
***
�Gliders And Mudpies�
By Andrew H. Oerke
The children are launching gliders
to see what�s lighter than air.
Only play is lighter than air,
its purpose merely itself.
And they are baking mudpies
to feed the multitudes
dying from the invisible,
incurable disease of time
and, worse, the consciousness of time.
The dark speck approaching
from the horizon
is a hint of the attack
that may be mounted any day.
Around a town of doom
flies buzz particularly lazily.
Meanwhile, the children play and play.
Their fingers flutter
past night and day, and now and then,
as if everything were one and the same.
The mudpies and the fingers are one.
The balsam tree thinks it is light.
Its wooden glider�s paper-thin,
and scrawls calligraphy on the air
with no discernible message,
but when did that ever discourage
the song that will not last,
or the bird from flying past?