Dear Friend

The cat is yowling
Who has plenty of food and drink
Who spent time outside until he asked to come in
What do you want I fatuously ask
Knowing that he will not answer
Unless it’s with a yowl
And I know the answer anyway
He wants conditions to be otherwise than they are

You rode a raft on rapids in Idaho
The teeming gnats tormented you
You smiled before the gnats
Like the happy motorcyclist
You felt the unfamiliar stir of joy
For every gnat caught in your teeth

For you knew that nature had molded each gnat
And the fish eat the gnats
And the bears eat the fish
And a hundred thousand times more relations
Than bear and fish or fish and gnat
For a cubic inch of river say
Holds infinite permutations

And behold the power of the fish
Driving up the falls
Scaling the ladder of the water and the rocks
Upright vertical
Driven from the ocean
Compelled to make the attempt
The power of the water over the falls
The power of the rock
The power of the sun that converts the elements
And a billion billion suns
Or a billion billion billion

The rock washed to the sea
The continents scudding across the sea

You beheld miracle
And in real time you knew you so beheld
And as you gave the account to me
I felt the familiar stir of fear
For I feared my dear friend
That you were teetering into the embrace of Tyrant Yahweh

And I regret having judged you meanly
If only for an instant
For fear is no basis for judgment
And we fear what we think we know
And I know that the ignorant sometimes
Believe that a phenomenon they do not understand
Must be not only a divine revelation
But the self-same revelation bequeathed
By emperor prince and inquisition

And everyone is infinitely ignorant

Wonder is a good thing
Good is it to behold in joy
That which passes understanding

And I sin in envy that you enjoy
Humility without humiliation
For you understand that understanding
Is in its infancy
For the only being we know
Capable of responding to reasons
Is young and merely capable

All are made for suffering
All sentience senses pain
Life lives by battening upon death
Death thrives among the living
But we who can reason
Can know as you have taught me
The bad from the good
And if we can control ourselves
We can forbear to add to the suffering
That comes with nature’s bounty