A Designer of Systems

1 I say I'm a designer of systems, plans Man's Parts that stand together, set in place to serve Trees and planets, too, which are unplanned by us The observant, wise man Tries to understand Name the parts, pistil and stamen Rocks, eskars Elements. Winter is shuddering to an end, mud roads Cardinal pairs Robin flocks return that will soon pair off Buds Soils swell Will I live to smell it again, learn the lobelias Understand and name the parts It ought to be a great comfort to be so insignificant Go among weeds, a wind Thinking to myself One's never alone A dichotomous key is needed, a book of twigs and fruits Accumulated over time and generations Without it mine would be a blank mind To be blank but knowledgeable Without any machinery In a perfect silence That is the definition of death for which we have only to wait But in my panic last night I thought death's inert Grace requires consciousness Hold on long to the senses At least a century, maybe more A boy hanging upside down from a fence at sunset, counting clouds 2 Now we go to our daily practice And chosen disciplines Sustained by the satisfactions of being good men among our fellow men Women Choosing to do this and not that With the finite days allotted us that at first seemed like a lot They're now few But the chickadee's life to the chick and the cankerworm moth's to the worm Seem as long to them as ours to us What question am I asking today By now, past half a century, I should have chosen a discipline And been satisfied To be a war president one must have war May you live in interesting times?wish or curse? Squirrels, high in oaks, Fiber, fat and protein in acorns Strong runners, leapers, climbers Should stay off the roads which some cannot avoid being where they're born Natural selection is occurring Those that look for machinery in motion Hesitate or don't as needed before crossing Live in larger numbers than those whose modus operandi's Guessing The ravens eat the fur and guts of bad guesses off the roads I impose my own small order Having chosen mountains over plains or shore Go to my daily discipline And estimate the motions of the seas and stars Measuring my satisfactions by my children's satisfactions