just continuing....
[who was that guy who protested war by playing his cello while bombs fell?]

i'd just been listening
on free speech radio,
about the cops
in my hometown, Oakland,
shooting into a peaceful protest,
with rubber/wooden bullets
and then,
into a group of union workers
waiting nearby to get into work!

after that i wanted out.
i wanted to get out of this country.
i was thinking
about how
i didn't know what
to do next.
get arrested?
get shot?
die on a cross?

i walked
over to this stream and
got real close to try
to see
where the peepers
in the grasses were
sounding from.
i sat
on this stone that
was shaped butt-perfect,
and there were two flat
stones down
by my feet,
by the stream
there were tiny
tiny purple and pink flowers
and the peepers,
how i love
thier sounds
chirping their singsong
hearts out.
back and forth till
the end of the world, no matter.

and i thought about how
they don't know
what the humans do
and so they sing.
but even if
they did, they'd sing
cuz that's what peepers do.
and how even
if i live or live (in the throes of
a dying hope, some days)
i write...
cuz that's what i do.

and i was thinking
about what to do
now that i don't know
what i thought i knew,
and they answered,
as they have all along,
in their continued chirping...


what to do,
what I do,
what I always did,
something
to do
with being excited
being receiver,
being stuck open,
something to do
with sounding
loud
singing
crazy
making stuff up

just what
I am, my way,
whose way?
the way
I was wired
the way it was intended
that made me
what it is
that intends me to be
how i am,
not a man,
not a peeper,
this woman now
as it is,
as if it is
supposed to be
as i am...

just not buying
not being sold
into all the death
and the hype
that is oh so bonded to death.

even if no one notices.
I join
the ranks
of the zillions
of trees
and wild beings
that
just
continue
sounding,
standing,
swishing,
moaning,
being only as they
were created
to
do themselves
as they are.


that's a miracle,
the way even during
the holocoust,
the sun insisted
on rising,

the miracle is not
what humans do
but
what nature does
in spite of what we do.

and if i continue
to be loud
or more into imagination than money
or to be childlike
or sex-driven
or whatever it is
that makes me vibrant,
then,
well, i'm being something
of an activist, aren't I?
lil irrelevant, irreverant, nobody, being
natural in an un-natural world.
not buying stuff
not being nice because
nice is only
white, middle class, male, protestant, northamerican patriot, married, moneyed
ambitious
biggoted
big
bawdy
balling
ball o empty candy wrappers
and addictions
sitting
in front of a tv
with a beer
after working so many hours
i can't think for myself
so why bother

upholding the law of the land
"dont think, dont talk, dont feel"
the law of soft, white, and quick?

but sorry
i'm a jew
overly sensitive
female
ferocious
feminist
man hater
selfish
irresponsible
creative
brilliant
mentally ill
me

i'm not part of
the abberation
going on around me.
and sometimes you know,
it's that big tree still standing
near your house that
comforts you. and
maybe we do nothing
to change the course
of history but
be true to ourselves.
and if that's all
that we can do, maybe
that's enough.