Either/Or.
My dream after the dream of more war, that for every brain
there exists a devil, a particular devil, hairy, scaly,
or slimy, but compact enough to slot between lobes,
and evil, implacably evil, slicing at us
from within, causing us to yield to the part of the soul that
argues itself to pieces then reconstitutes as a club.
When I look closely though at my world, it seemed to me
devils were insufficient to account for such terror,
confusion, and hatred.
Evil must be other than one by one, one at a time.
It has to be general, a palpable something,
like carbon dioxide or ash that bleeds
over the hemispheres of the world
as over the halves of the mind.
But could it really be that overarching?
What of love, generosity, pity?
So I concluded there after all would
have to be devils, but mine when I dug through the furrows
to find him, seemed listless.
Mostly he spent his time honing his horns, little prong things
like baby's erections, but sharp, sharp
as the blade that guts the goat.
Just as in the brain are devils in the world are bees.
Bees are angels, angels bees.
Each person has his or her bee and his or her angel,
not guardian angel, not either one of those with drawn swords
who inflict chastisement, but angels of presence,
the presence that flares in the conscience
not as philosophers fire, but bees.
Bee fire is love.
Angel fire is too.
Both angels and bees evolve from seen to unseen.
Both as you know from your childhood
have glittering wings, but regarded too closely
are dragons.
Both like trappers have fur on their legs,
sticky with lickings of pollen.
For angels, the sweetness is maddening.
For bees, it's part of the job.
Still, not in their wildest imaginings
did the angel bees reckon to labor like mules
be truck from meadow to mountain have their compasses fouled,
so they'd fall on their backs like old men,
like me, dust to their dime and dross to their ore,
but wondering as they do, who in this cruel strew of matter
will save us?
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you.