What Endures Is the Ephemeral  

by Len Anderson

for even a rose can have lovely hips while we, the only bird known

to carry its cage as it flies,

have learned to distrust

animal ecstasy, suspecting we

are an aberration of light.

Now, three thousand years into a dig

we are on our hands and knees

still brushing away the dust

from the metaphysical architecture,

another failed civilization.

Other birds land nearby

scratch also for seeds,

and somehow we

cannot help but break into song.

Knowing we do not

sing the world into existence,

still we aim

to sing it

into its fullness.

   

Len Anderson is the author of Affection for the Unknowable (Hummingbird Press, 2003) and a chapbook, BEEP: A Version of the History of the Personal Computer Rendered in Free Verse in the Manner of Howl by Allen Ginsberg.  He serves as Secretary-Treasurer of Poetry Santa Cruz , a non-profit literary organization in Santa Cruz County .

The web page for Affection for the Unknowable:

http://www.skyhighway.com/~hummingbirdpress/lenanderson.html

 Len Anderson  (831) 464-8983
email: lenand@cruzio.com
Poetry Santa Cruz : http://www.poetrysantacruz.org
Hummingbird Press: http://www.hummingbirdpresspoetry.com