Diving Bell

Sun carves passages to us
down below the flies
They've been falling for eight months
out of the rising sun
and just now arriving on the breeze
Thundering in squadrons
eager to tear flesh and shed blood

Then down beneath the wind
we swim in illuminated dust
learn to breathe it like gills
unsure if we would survive
were we ever to surface

The heat, we think, comes less
from the hunting rays of an indolent sun
It radiates from our persons
ensconced, as we are, like cosmonauts
treading the surface of a swiftly shifting world

Our pillars and edifice
rise around like a coral bed
for us to move through, silent, in shoals
pathing dusty swaths and eddies

But we do emerge at length
and we bleed out of the yards
leave the dust and heat
for sleep and sweaty dreams
of summer and salt water
of swimming, always swimming
down upon some ocean floor
flooding our new lungs with cool water

Tectonic Irony

We say the word foundation as if it means forever -
As if that fragile, concrete shell we lay down and lay money on
Can make us forget that below foundation lies fundament -
The hot, tectonic heart of things, agitated, yet biding its time.

We forget that we are standing on this shifting
Jigsaw puzzle we call Earth, so we build credit card towers,
Vying wildly for height and ostentation,
Carving our names and souls upon our dollar bill thin
Layers of comfort and security.

But unplanned gates appear in all of our fences,
And though we try to lay out our paths with straight rules and razors,
Still runways crack, sidewalks buckle, and weeds push stone aside;
it is a seismic activity that goes on regardless of whether
we've saved or invested, or spent enough time with the ones we love.
And any vestige of faith still left in us compels us
To cry out in our ruins and beg for the answer to
The only question we can still think of to ask.

But yet we go on, idly trying to understand science,
Convincing ourselves that we must adapt to survive,
Forgetting that we even questioned; for what is there to question
But the sharp, inevitable desire of continent for continent?

But as our swollen eyes survey the damage and the ashes,
Even the weeds see past our empty rhetoric
And push through the floor boards as if to tell us,
Look at how fearfully and wonderfully you are made!
For if you were made for the entropy of this world alone,
Then Earth's shaking foundations would not shake yours.