You know the one where you're
walking casually
down the street on an early
Sunday and you see
the anointed ones
the chosen few
that narrow crowd
of purple tulips
wet with morning dew—
the strangeness
of those brainless creatures
ethereal tubes that cannot move
and yet have found a way
of bending gently
but intently toward
the Sun, their great master
and silent teacher
that cabalistic healer
who looks without seeing
and touches from afar
that bizarre and monstrous
alien star, burning itself to
complete destruction
a billion times a billion
miles from here—
and for a moment you too
feel absolved
released from your previous
angle of inclination
humbled but exalted
by the braveness of color
the stamina of these forms
of water, the pure white immensity
of light
and all of a sudden
you find yourself
on board, transported
along with this blooming communion
of believers
to a place
where you're not
walking down the street anymore
but climbing
sideways
up the slope of a rock
so huge
and strange, it weighs
nothing?
