A Frog Sees the Lightning

From frog to foot to frog to foot…

 

A 50 ton leather-sole stomps about

Giant slips of Liberty’s sandals.

Watch out frog! Don’t block the footfalls.

 

“Who said that?”

 

Don’t do like the mouse, and you’re free to roam around.

Get all the flies and spiders you like.

 

“Where are we going this time?” asks the inquisitive one.

 

Bah, such questions…

The questions best abide action

A horse of course, dressed in silver,

a goddess above flying,

dipping wings, dripping rain,

floating about, showers alloyed blades, implement ready,

see them strike, earth meets sky, sky meets earth,

these astral-biological wonders, fallen in love, their charges

parallel induced touched at a canyon crossed over arcs,

fly sparks, reels wooden earth, sways at wind and storm, forces

primal, earth and sky connecting, liquids, gases,

solidified time testing, interweaving atmospherics.

 

“What did that thing say?”

 

“I don’t know man, it and them others you seen them too, is like, stomping along, you gotta watch out of course, see little tadpole, I know you just came out of the water, and this here’s the land, and you got them things all around, they don’t bother much or may some if you’re not careful, best to stay away, they might reach down and grab ya, I heard stories, and those four legged ones are to really worry about, they’re all round and will gobble you right up.”

 

“What is this place?”

 

“Tonga-tinga-mondo-lingo-riva-piva-cana-widget.”

 

“The fuck?”

 

Name’s not the game.

 

“What?”

 

***

 

Hey, hey you.

 

“Frogs and silver trees and giants and four-legged beasties, slithering snakes, bears all furry-“

 

“What’s that?”

 

“You just interrupted.”

 

“Me? I was asking if this was all real, like, for fucking real?”

 

… [awkward pause]

 

“So-“

 

“Yeah.”

 

“So the-“

 

“Yeah.”

 

“But wha-“

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Alright.”

 

… [less awkward pause]

 

“So what’s there to eat?”

 

“Well, the little scampering things see, they’re crunchy and tasty, and they’re all over the place. And when the rains come, see, they come out all the more. Watch for that.

 

“Rains?”

 

“Yep, water falls from the sky.”

 

“Really? No way!”

 

“Yup. Look, it’s starting.” Boom, boom. Giant globs of water hit the ground about, with tremendous crashes, splashing everything. The frogs hop toward shelter, a large cavern with a smooth, hard floor. They watch the basketball sized drops crash outside the entrance. A deep, rumbling voice comes from within…

 

Ah, the rains come with new presents!

Gifts from the sky, gifts from our gods.

Few they come when faith falls to wicked persuasions,

propped up, standing with rationalizations,

as a child, cries why,

that bauble be mine!

 

What of my child?

What does he want, for whom does he cry?

For loved once, gave birth,

met newborn face with loving eyes.

That child cries, wants and pines.

 

Now who he to know the greater?

As much personal,

but gain with years,

gain sight of seers,

then deny, O deny!

Why for self’s sake deny wants,

though cries issue forth, but not for he,

arrogant solitude be minor feat.

Experience gained, to know the temporary,

while permanence falls heavy,

heavy on the soul,

watching gifts drop,

drench the witness in acknowledgment,

sacrament, thankfulness.

And worry etches the brow,

impossible not allow,

scripts and fleeting life snippets

pass by worried eyes,

wandering toward a greater score.

Fie the battle!

Victory worth less,

when loser be blessed.

God bless us!

Yes, he did!

Again and again,

with fervor,

with paradise and free will assured,

us creatures grown up from the earth,

gifted with a light of sorts,

one hardly understood,

blinding too,

averting our eyes toward faux value,

and virtue in innocence lost!

O cry out for day, cry out for the natural way!

But what return entail,

suffer in roundabout journey,

building artifice,

our very nature challenged.

Have we worth it?

Have we worth what?

The denatured synthetic future,

scores living,

billions surviving,

worth the synthesis,

technological and human progress,

or a blasted, wasted paradise readies its fruits,

withered and struggling to survive.

Cries for the return!

Be you humanist?

Then fly fools toward the future vast!

A paradise cries for your wandering eyes!

Return not, but look forward, up,

grasp and strive with each aching bone,

for that future world!

Strain with your back, legs, sinews,

beyond which your heart would burst,

let it burst!

Cough and stagger through,

though your chains be holding you,

be not attached to rock,

but your fellow!

If bonded forever we be,

as they or we seem,

know the chains bind all, equally.

 

Night and day break above our heads,

our souls long to be free of this night,

this shadow casting pall.

Staged as a tragedy for all,

meant for failure, we?

Let that be!

Give your truth stage,

that truth of staging,

the setting by which you live,

we live out another day.

Strain those chains and break that staging!

This world, our Earth, cares less for us daily.

Speaking in harsh tones,

harsher the more rebellious the child,

her children, her best progeny,

her most gifted sons and daughters.

Throw those shackles and hear her voice,

do right by hook or by crook.

She will cast us off without a thought,

patience waning with every drill cut.

There is no shame, her voice, in following

it gains in pitch and urgency.

What voice drowns her out?

Sense of duty and responsibility,

ethical connection to your fellow,

social morality,

to pay debts accrued wrongly.

For the health,

not of only of yourself,

but some sense of humanity,

shared collective fate demands,

spurred by her warning,

a humanist accepts responsibility for progressing.

The gate will not fit the chains binding humanity.

 

“Did you hear that? It’s like a low rumbling.”

 

That’s how sky mated with earth.

As the shifting shells in interlace

as god of sky and god of earth felt their spring,

when they met, when they now meet, how so?

See the lightning.

Watch the earth and sky

tremble in rapturous ecstasy.

They crash into and within deepest charge,

us mortals observe,

they procreate divine and sublime

ancient and prescient meaning,

a primitive birthing,

they met, will ever interact,

tearing the physical fabric,

between their connect,

feel the moment,

it’s primal and vital to our health,

a grand interweaving,

vast expanse of gods beyond men and women,

vapor chops the sky,

states of matter materialize,

in front of our eyes,

this great act of intercourse and while

swirling, curling, enraptured feeling,

tremble in anticipation,

our world in the act of procreation.

 

Could you see that as act,

special we be… indeed.

Strings and wisps threading fogs and flows

tween stones, about birds’ wings,

as flitting as an evening,

with peace, serenity, and harmony,

a major tendency,

shocking moments temporary,

like material meant to stay that way

conditionally circumstantial level the environmental,

temperature and gravity vary wildly,

depend spatially,

distance to and from other bodies,

alteration by means of transportation,

vicinity,

while forces called wild be consistent,

a paradox of perception,

self-observation and consciousness,

awareness,

bridging harmonies over long-expanses,

complexity from simplicity,

scaled-to the level of human,

ourselves interactive masses,

grown of building blocks,

given capabilities,

calamitous often,

stranger than our animal brethren,

yes, we are the effect.

How great a cause?

As great and grand the universe itself,

in all glory, it, we, the progeny of history,

an apex, daily spending our precious fits.

And who could say as much?

Who could be the one

or two or three or more

to scream to the heavens,

when God hears for sure,

but our fellow man’s warped to the core.

 

For this man,

the question’s no mystery

whether God hears our pleas,

and answers come,

though vague and strange,

satisfactory.

Asked by some,

why would God allow such a thing?

God allows all.

We are free,

a great gift (another for those counting).

Direct action beside a rule.

More difficult among “Gods and Men”,

of man, humankind,

a church upon this earth,

us stewards of planet and fellow.

Does God hear you? Of course.

Does Man hear you? No? Make it so.

Search long enough,

and answers come.

Answers, yes. Great!

Now we know, correct?

Right and good, eh?

No? The answer is a bitch,

but not God’s realm,

for Nature determines action.

Have you noticed? She calls…

 

“Where’s it going now?”

 

“Every couple hours it walks away for a few minutes into the other room. I don’t know. (Frog No. 1 pees on the floor.) The man returns.

 

Nature calls her children to action,

a biological imperative.

And here be simple answers.

Physical interactions,

energy dependency,

cells upon cells upon cells,

flowing through and within each other,

send messengers,

divide, breed, so quietly,

in tandem, a ballet.

Yes, the story continues,

nature bursts through obstacles.

“Human nature”, they say,

is our downfall, eh?

Our actions,

more or less set,

predetermined by necessity.

That is nature calling.

 

What of civility?

Tempering and honing the calling,

“enlightenment” deliberates action,

touching clouds of heaven.

The sky flows through all open space.

Until, or unless,

we breach other spheres,

beyond our comfortable nature,

an abyss stretches out endlessly,

before our very noses.

Planets, other “gods”

with their own temperament

call or scream away,

as Venus warns,

screaming in agony,

boiling away, relatively,

us wolves upon porcupine,

without underbelly,

no soft patch

or succulence or gentleness.

Anathema to our nature.

They say devils and demons live there.

Nonetheless a state,

peculiar to us or perhaps the crow,

that spreads to areas without water,

never too hot nor too cold, to make another home.

 

So much, done in the past,

questioning not the consequence.

And now, we see them about,

and answers so well known, available to all.

Yet divisive distraction

denies our nature,

denies the enlightened.

Racing to the end.

The faster race,

the quicker finish.

Slow and low, extends competition.

If anyone hopes to make it,

to grasp our nature and future,

accept limitation,

but fulfill potential.

Our goals, what are they even?

You tell me what you think!

 

He yells through the open door.

 

Don’t care to answer?

Then listen!

A healthy long life for you, me,

your children and grandchildren!

This is how we do that.

 

He takes a clipboard, a pair of charts, and a white board.

 

Equalize intake, output,

energy parity, infrastructure,

intend to ends here, here and here.

This mechanism limits waste.

Distribute goods and services this way.

Efficiency counts, and see how so.

Even if it takes more work,

the direct plan is preferred.

Value determined this way.

 

In all great projects,

you need the help of many.

Even the very powerful,

when they get on board,

would still make a struggle.

We are fighting against deep-seated interests

that don’t translate to individual intent.

There are parts of our brains that

will disagree conceptually.

Loosing control is hard to imagine,

more so the longer it took,

to come to fruition.

How must that feel?

 

A castle so strenuously constructed,

strong enough to last eons,

upon ramparts you stand and gaze,

the sun vibrant before you,

a victor of a grand battle,

owing none to another,

to sit upon a throne,

one’s own.

 

Now that castle shakes,

it quakes,

by your own making.

 

But do not despair!

Do not stir at the rumblings about,

the change and the wild.

These forces breed in due time,

and bring forth beautiful progeny.

Living for your betterment,

no matter who you be,

nor what station nor color nor creed:

The power behind enlightened nature’s calling.

She calls to you.

While the heavens dance about her,

through and between all crevasses.

Watch the lightning, earth and sky mate,

as nature piques enlightenment,

as dipoles bridge connection,

as the opposed embrace.

The myriad wonder,

that upon a time and place,

gave birth to life flowing through our veins,

the bridge of chaos and order,

the syntheses of reality and dream,

the wild and the civilized,

nature and God in one being,

the quantum and the macrocosm,

humanity in between,

the sudden impact,

and the deliberate act,

the fractal dance,

splits hairs without care,

and cares not for split hairs.

 

And these our children!

They spread across all whose good soul they touch.

“Humanity lies between competing forces”,

our charge to mediate, allow transition,

step free of interaction,

lightning rods at appropriate location,

aiding, abetting, abiding connection

amongst friends and family,

nature and society,

even round the globe,

infinitely loosing

cupids arrows upon hearts of stone,

warming hearths and homes,

rewarding happiness,

want and need.

You see!

When you hear these words,

you see.

This is no mere dream.

It can be reality! Matters of time and pressure, only.

 

He turns away from the door.

 

Rest it upon me to say such things?

If necessary “A”,

then fucking “A”!

Classic tropes,

reluctant heroes spin heads so,

reluctant villains too.

Who’s to say?

That once God willed angels

destructive flames

lay ignorance to waste,

too brutal enlightenment,

wisdom held sway,

but what wisdom that destroy?

God relegated to the classic world,

long passed,

what wisdom in past fades

as waves shear the cliff face.

Wisdom, yes, but that of yesterday!

O compassion, still,

grip my soul tightly, O gift!

Tend your tree and let not wither,

for vengeance’s sword glitters,

greater with the morning light.

Yes, the sun will soon rise.

What will become of the day?

Striving forces of enlightened nature,

contemplation complete,

dreams finished, and the day awaits.

 

This hand stirs with new dawn’s breath.

See it lift, see it rise.

Be it palm… or fist…

 

A blue streak cracks the sky,

and a frog sees the lightning.