Trout Roe

 

All the rivers run into the sea;

yet the sea is not full;

unto the place from whence the rivers come,

thither they return again.

     It is raining today

in the mountains.

     It is a warm green rain

with love

in its pockets

for spring is here,

and does not dream

of death.

     Birds happen music

like clocks ticking heaves

in a land

The Return of the Rivers (1957)

I like to think (and

the sooner the better!)

of a cybernetic meadow

where mammals and computers

live together in mutually

programming harmony

like pure water

touching clear sky.

I like to think

     (right now please!)

of a cybernetic forest

filled with pines and electronics

where deer stroll peacefully

past computers

as if they were flowers

with spinning blossoms.

I like to think

     (it has to be!)

of a cybernetic ecology

where we are free of our labors

and joined back to nature,

returned to our mammal

brothers and sisters,

and all watched over

by machines of loving grace.

where children love spiders,

and let them sleep

in their hair.

     A slow rain sizzles

on the river

like a pan

full of frying flowers,

and with each drop

of rain

the ocean

begins again.

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace (1967)

Watching Japanese television,

two young women in kimonos

are standing beside a biplane.

     That's right:

     an old timey airplane.

A man is interviewing them.

They are having a very animated

and happy conversation.

I wish I knew Japanese because

I will never know why they are

     standing next

     to a biplane,

but they will stand there forever

in my mind, happy pilots

     in their kimonos,

     waiting to take off.

                    Tokyo

                    May 13, 1976

Kitty Hawk Kimonos

Oh, pretty girl, you have trapped 

yourself in the wrong body.  Twenty 

extra pounds hang like a lumpy 

tapestry on your perfect mammal nature.

Three months ago you were like a 

deer staring at the first winter snow.

Now Aphrodite thumbs her nose at you 

and tells stories behind your back.

The First Winter Snow (1989)

from The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster

Richard G. Brautigan (January 30, 1935 – c. September 16, 1984)