Onyx Egg

I bought an egg of onyx
and a skull made from balsa wood
in the airy marketplace of Otavalo.

The plaza de ponchos a labyrinth
of cascading tapestries and pure
Alpaca knits and walls of sweaters

Felt hats and straw hats hechas a mano
and chintzy wooden trinkets and
a trunk of crumbling catechism books.

The sizzle of porks and skins and
Corn frying and a batter of cornmeal
touching the ears of everyone alike, even the

Wine creased face folded on the sidewalk
mumbling for sueltos and garnering no gazes,
his green felt hat dirigible and grimed

And the filthy tiny mutt dog lying beside
with scruffed sores and bent ears,
their plot and plight ignored as Chinese silks

by all but certainly by the man selling coca treats
and maté teas and leaves to chew for three dollars
but we haggle down to three for five

And flying about drunk munching hojas de coca
through bustle and rigor and pale, thrifty Germans
with thick wollen jackets abounding

and patterns of alpaca prancing through their zippers
all vanilla faced gringos like we are,
snatching up the droppings of the Andes

and leaving greenbacks for farmers and their
wives.

Learning Still

Slept out in a refuge,
A wooden platform with roof, the night,
Lauding open air and openness 
And alarm of cheery birds
And blankets of jackets
And sheets of tent fibers
And noble clouds growing
For our breakfast. 

Time again to rise and march
Down the mountainside
Between steep farms and 
Fences groaning trunks
Weaved with barbed wire
To valley, and city, and people. 

Still,
The exalted quiet of desert forest
Was my teacher for a night. 

Cosmic Drama - Tat Tat Tat. . .

I've always known 
the games you play,
You hide in eight part harmony 

In every one 
and thing and time
From salmon, Georgia, and the blind

You lie your lie
You think is true, beguiling stars
And mortal woe. 

You're hid so well 
we've plum forgot 
It's Turtle-turtle, bottom-up.

From wisdom 
Sheltered, knowledge, void,
The matter is we're all annoyed.

From me right now, 
you're hiding too--
You're all that is and I am too. 



Tat Tvam Asi