Anstiss poetry

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Conservation of Matter and Energy

NOW

How many times has earth life ended?
                        Five times they said; maybe six.

Everything, all forms of life?
                        Well, 95% --give or take--each time.

What caused it? What did it?
                        The asteroid that made
                                the Gulf of Mexico;
                        The lick of sun energy
                                that firebombed the world;
                        The deep freeze that covered us
                                pole to pole.

We're not safe then?
                        Safe is just a word like God
                                rising from the yearning of man.

What can we do?
                        Watch, listen, love one another
                                now.

SEQUEL

But what do you mean, "covered us?
        You can't tell me I lived in the ice age.
                        How about your component parts?
                        Consider every atom, every subatomic particle.

                        When the earth froze, every atom of your body
                                froze with it.
                        When the earth burned, every atom of your body
                                burned with it.
                        Except for what came riding in
                                on a comet's tail
                                or in the meteorite dust,
                        All that is you, all that is me,
                        Has been on this earth for eons
                                and eons
                                and eons.

And where from before that?
                        From the hearts of stars....

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if i could be sure
that all the world
enjoyed the freedoms
I have here
I could laugh

If i could be sure

that quiet nights
and sweet soft air
were given to all
I could dance

If I could forget

the anxious faces in
the hectic traffic
of east coast highways
I could relax

if I were convinced

we can become wise
and check our growing
population
I would praise god

if crazy greed

and gross indifference
could transmute
to love for earth and all
I could breathe
and smile
and sing

What can I do in my desperation
where can I fly
all the air is sick
all the landing fields are poisoned

here I am on a river bank
but poison rains
laws are waived
all the perfumes of Arabia

cannot undo
the ill
that gives us cancer
that steals our lives

  ********
     nets
     gray sticky webbing
  	gray of smog and soot
     tossed over me
  	by demanding words
  	by demanding thoughts

     flames are ready at each finger tip
     they make beautiful delayed patterns
  	on my retinas
     as they dance through
     where the gray nets were

     where are the gray nets

  	dissipated
  	evanesced
  	gone to make the dust
  	   between the stars

  ************

     you ask me
  	what about
  	your fears
     i say
  	love them and hug them
  	be gentle with them

  	they are little babies of thoughts
  	that haven't learned to walk yet.
  	that's all

  	help them grow beautiful and strong
  	   and true
  	feed them on love and truth

  	they will grow beautiful
  	they will become poems

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What is this joy that comes unbid
Unlooked for
It was always there
But the wind uncovered it
It was always there
But the sun revealed it
It is always here
And my heart sings to it
Blessed be the joy that wells
	a bubbling current
	from the deeps of my soul

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	star

tiny, defined by its radiance
	lost within it
	like a cat
	within a Persian long hair coat

immense, incomprehensible.
	combustion like the eternal hell
	of Irish preachers

one and the same

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