do you even
from willa beale | writ 3 August — 16 December 2024
do you even talk to the grasshoppers tell them how beautiful they will never know they are in late summer when their wings are so lovely flitting amidst the tall grass like unfettered flowers? do you even kneel low to the earth to speak to the grasshoppers to tell them how great they are to tell them in a foreign language they will never understand how much you appreciate everything they don't do? do you even weep when hearing the cricket's song wishing you could make your lust so lovely make your wanting so passionate and natural make your living such a melody of being? i do. you never will. i think. because you cannot weep at each line of a poem by Him whose English sings greater than the Bard's because you cannot weep to know of LibriVox and the many voices living restless for the human canon because you cannot weep when you consider the Earth and your love for all matter and how you misunderstand me you never will. i bet you never will. i bet you will never go outside too late when no one else would go and lie there on the wet cold sharp grass and watch the Cosmos, the litter box of creation, weal before you do you even stalk squirrels in the forest to see how a squirrel might live between the pines and fury always moving never resting never ceasing, ever-loving and curious at the human chasing them? do you even remember how a stingray's paw feels against your fingertips? do you even remember the scent of flowers on the summer wind in winter? do you even regard yourself not as a thing in a textbook but in a nature overwhelming still All as it ever was? i bet you don't even. i bet you defend rich Homo sapiens, i bet you dig famous Homo sapiens, i bet you wanna be a Homo sapiens. do you even weep for Homo neanderthalensis? you stupid human. you damn dirty ape. you/you/you—heathen! do you even sing most for what is quiet about your nature: you once survived like They, all the small things; you were once the god of small things? do you even remember?