The Ithacan

 What if I alone were to hear these sirens,

and survive the impulse to plunge

while bound?

And all around me no one else

heard the sound

but could see my ravings, unhearing?

The fabled tune that makes men mad

fascinates as it destroys

but how can I resist the lure

of doing what was not done before?

I yearn despite my fearing.

Tie me to this masthead

as if I myself were a siren carved

in place,

for I who will know death

must surely face

with open ears

the language that allays my fears

and would drive me to that other

home that is not Ithaca.

Tree of Life (revised)

 The trunks smolders,

but maybe it will live.

The branches are in trouble.

The roots are in trouble.

We are

in trouble.

The fire drove living

things back

to the sea.

We can never go back to how 

it used to be.

Or even a fortunate tack.

 Life will puncture you

if you are lucky

and take the hot air out of you

sometime before you've risen

so high those around you

seem small.

Some days I see some

balloon-headed fool and think,

"Where is that cosmic arrow?"

It will come both a little too late,

and still be right on time.

Unaffirmed

 "God is in charge"

was the affirmation, "So be not afraid."

And while he wrote it

a baby was born with a tumor,

a thousand people died of preventable 

causes, flies surrounded

a starving child,

prisoners sat with faint hope

of seeing freedom,

a wife was beaten while her children

watched and

dozens of judges took

millions of dollars 

in bribes. 

If I believed in the 

first line of this poem,

what would I dare to do about the rest? 

What could I do even now?

Job once was asked where he was

while Earth and Heaven were created,

while he sat on a pile, bereft

and blighted.

We all have questions,

don't we?