Change Poem by Robert Ronnow

            I am feeling the shock of fast change. How to cope with it is of course the question. Listen to Beethoven through the neighbor's window? Look up from the page? Appreciate doves even though they are so numerous? I seem to have limitless choices although this cannot be true. Could I have become a computer specialist? Sure! How to remain still in the ever-maddening mandala. To remain still on the outer edge of the wheel is to ride laughingly and pluck at the gold key. I force myself down into the craw of the black vortex New York until I feel the strong oscillations gather rhythm and expel me or accept me.

            What do I find within the black electric walls of this unique vortex? I find there is more space between people than I'd ever dared to hope. That my efforts are unnecessary and hopeless. I cancel my subscriptions and stop eating. I embrace wild roots and run through streets with arm around my girl.


                              *                        *                        *

What is important.
That question.
I part my lips in the middle
      and blow
eat corn chips, dipsy doodles
make love, eat grapes.
                                    In their mere chronology
events have no relation. How was making love
different from eating grapes. Differentiation

is essential to bring order from chaos. The chaos
is the accelerated change created by our own species
whose consummations have a quantum effect
      on the environment.
                                     But the chaos
existed long before, and long after us
in both more serene and violent forms.
Again a duality, but here's why.
                                                For
each duality may then be said to be in a dual
relationship with another duality, forming
cubes.
           These cubes are difficult to join
with other cubes, unless first they are
somewhat melted.
                            We were traveling among
these cubes, maneuvering
through a static array of equidistant points
but finding it impossible to avoid striking them.

So why the difficulty adapting. Because no species
before us had to adapt to its own effects upon
environment? No, every species must

but our adaptations (of the world) are so successful
(such fabrications!) One green, one brown

                        Two dead leaves
                              sleep-touching
                                    Then a breeze!

                              *                        *                         *

                                    Loveliness and loneliness
                                    these periodic
                                    auras
                                             they sleep apart/together

sometimes not always
      using sheets of white nothing madly
            connecting, splicing, parturition
                  continuing to birth life and ideals
                        like ants or any other species.
                              Tree, each poem, begins
                                    and ends and giving up
                                          to life's forms
                                                graciously

surrendering to greater force, power, strength
      whatever it is called, the clog of heels
            upstairs to the door, turning of
                  the key, the taking out of the
                        garbage down below, car
                              starting, placed in
                                    gear, cat
                                          meowing

anyway, for myself, personally, speaking only
      for myself, because although the Parks
            Department rakes the leaves as it
                  did last autumn, to keep them
                        from clogging the sewer system,
                              I am in a heightened
                                    state of vibration
                                          Quivering

like a long steel pipe banged hard against an
      iron beam. The hard hat feels it in
            his hand (on the gears) but
                  great buildings are built that
                        nature destroys in time
                              with a little wind
                                    water, fire

air, you glide down through the limpid air
      toward the ninety-seven story abandoned structure
            remnant of an earlier civilization
                  abandoned but not yet entirely
                        swept away in slow waves
                              of change.