NOTHING, THAT IS TO SAY, LIMITLESS

The fragility of human values,
How they always rely on human values,
Like the way we look disconsolately for things
To talk about besides ourselves,
Yet preface our remarks with I,
Bringing all our force to bear on something else.
If only finding ourselves did not make us destroy;
One misplaced smack to a youngster
Who will be forever in repentance
And you forever in remorse.

Trees, responding to sunlight,
Responding to rain, survive by reading.
The limbs ache perfectly
Because the sun to them is perfect
And the rain falls perfectly
Into the tree's place.
Each is a perfect expression of where it came from,
Each is utterly opaque,
And all are rewarded in turn, all they can want
Is given to them,
Although they never know they have it
Because they did not really want it
To be given.

And now, dear, that I've surprised you
After the wherewithal and the what now
With what I really am,
You stand back and stutter, you know
Your hate has to find a home somewhere else,
You cry only because you're alone,
Only when someone isn't there to answer you,
The unanswerable.

Doomed to wander in duplicate,
The sane are on either side of a line.
The lost cuckoo proudly
"The same to you."
The found look for their someone
To take their message to the Gods
But they find only loonies, lesbians and poets
All holding their tongues
And staring back,
Startling one of the ever-startled things
In the vast unstartled world.