BIOSOPHY, AN OPTIMIST'S MANIFESTO

The purpose of life is life itself-and when we have done our share

inwardly, the outer things will follow of themselves.

Goethe, letter to Heinrich Meyer, August 8, 1792

Say it's naive, this belief

in more than Darwin's old manifesto,

combat, the wolf who attacks by instinct,

the struggle of a viper cornering

his prey, our being defined by this way

of knowing the earth. What of that

other possibility, evening,

when our whole body is one sense,

the sky spreading out its liberation

in great splashes of phosphorous,

of the bible, of the prophets,

of the oldest poems, the stony shore

of the pond, pebbles underfoot sounding

like a string quartet by Beethoven

in my head, this unabashed

enthusiasm in the capricious loops

and detours we take, eating wild berries,

their succulence a thirst

for the sky with its mackerel-colored clouds,

lit from within, the city

wavering in the distance like the cosmos,

for barn swallows moving in and out

of our path, in the quiet, love,

where this closeness, this nonsense

takes hold: like joy. These words

a shoreline where we can stand.

Slender ribbons of grass at our shoes

cleanse us, so we imagine.

We're like one of those poems

that doesn't know where it's going,

like the hummingbird in our garden

searching for the showiest hibiscus

to slake its hunger. Tired, we walk

through damp grass, a country we explore.

We're drawn to this circle of intimacy,

for such momentary peace the body

still holds true. We breathe

in its grace, the night-blooming flowers

another way of knowing.