Childhood Liturgy
Posted: Mon Sep 12, 2005 11:43 pm
Myth I
As a boy—long lost among
the sequoias—I carved myself
a mythology.
Pine needles became armies
of loyal fallen soldiers sent
to their slaughter by the wave
of my hand, the force of my ego.
I wept for them, because I could
build no cairn to honor their memory:
matches weren’t allowed.
Myth II
The Cones were missiles or mortars,
maybe bouncing betties
and my little chickaree technicians
would dismantle them, sharp
teeth and deft, tiny fingers,
patiently stripping the nukes
down to their atomic pine-nut cores.
They would chatter gaily—
mad with glee and ambitious intent
while they worked. They turned, snapped,
possessed of their task—saturated in slave
zeal and when, finally, they reached center
they snatched the nut up
and burst away squeaking in ecstasy.
Myth III
And my own assassins were the ospreys,
spiraling relentlessly, mercilessly down down
down onto the mean old marmots, fierce ferrets and
nest wrecking weasels (evil egg killers, you know).
All wing beak and talon,
bright, blood stained daggers,
glistening where the trees’ pollen dust
had not tainted their valiant record.
But they were not mine to
control, to order and often
they struck my chickarees and the
hares, feigning blindness and claiming
they were mistaken for weasels.
I knew though, weasels are not so
tender as their lessers.
They like carpet-bombers, killed
wherever and whomever they chose to
fall upon.
Myth IV
The waterfalls, though, were kin to me—
kith by mist and sheer confusing thundering
grandeur and rage.
I drew their driftwood bones to me, like
a waterborne grave-digger, levying and mooring
them up from watery peace to dry like petrified
zombies—yanked disrespectfully from futile
bliss.
I lashed them sternly into a kayak—not
a raft—the rivers here are much too narrow,
too cruel: like glaciated veins, shorn out of
resolute mountains.
And so,
I justified my parents away…
Made a bier for my pine needle comrades
and now could send them heavenward
with proper homage—with a ritual I birthed
full grown, out of my own myths.
As a boy—long lost among
the sequoias—I carved myself
a mythology.
Pine needles became armies
of loyal fallen soldiers sent
to their slaughter by the wave
of my hand, the force of my ego.
I wept for them, because I could
build no cairn to honor their memory:
matches weren’t allowed.
Myth II
The Cones were missiles or mortars,
maybe bouncing betties
and my little chickaree technicians
would dismantle them, sharp
teeth and deft, tiny fingers,
patiently stripping the nukes
down to their atomic pine-nut cores.
They would chatter gaily—
mad with glee and ambitious intent
while they worked. They turned, snapped,
possessed of their task—saturated in slave
zeal and when, finally, they reached center
they snatched the nut up
and burst away squeaking in ecstasy.
Myth III
And my own assassins were the ospreys,
spiraling relentlessly, mercilessly down down
down onto the mean old marmots, fierce ferrets and
nest wrecking weasels (evil egg killers, you know).
All wing beak and talon,
bright, blood stained daggers,
glistening where the trees’ pollen dust
had not tainted their valiant record.
But they were not mine to
control, to order and often
they struck my chickarees and the
hares, feigning blindness and claiming
they were mistaken for weasels.
I knew though, weasels are not so
tender as their lessers.
They like carpet-bombers, killed
wherever and whomever they chose to
fall upon.
Myth IV
The waterfalls, though, were kin to me—
kith by mist and sheer confusing thundering
grandeur and rage.
I drew their driftwood bones to me, like
a waterborne grave-digger, levying and mooring
them up from watery peace to dry like petrified
zombies—yanked disrespectfully from futile
bliss.
I lashed them sternly into a kayak—not
a raft—the rivers here are much too narrow,
too cruel: like glaciated veins, shorn out of
resolute mountains.
And so,
I justified my parents away…
Made a bier for my pine needle comrades
and now could send them heavenward
with proper homage—with a ritual I birthed
full grown, out of my own myths.