What travels through our way of making sense
—a bit—of who we are and what we do,
we chart into morality, existence,
ethics left and right, what we see as true;
then, besides the making sense, we stumble
into skirmishes on and off the chart.
I may be talking Syria, in humble,
vain conclusions that don’t know how to start;
no man’s an island, though—distant bells still
toll for me. Common, human dignity
compels the coloring of lines that will
vary red and powder blue, black and green,
and yellow—the
native hue of non-resolve
when nothing’s safe
and common sense dissolves.
Yet must the ‘human’ be with dignity—
the asphalt terms so set? In walks my dog
takes me along, we talk about this theme,
the dignity of listening to God,
ourselves, the background noise, then doing what
we please. He’d start to run, I’d call a halt,
he’d stop and start to run. I’d holler that
a line’s been crossed; he slows and knows his fault
and circles back to normal paths. He sniffs
a thing or two. I smile despite myself
that training dognity would only miff
the greatest minds: those prone to deal in stealth.
In widening gyres
we have mere anarchy;
in homeward paths we sniff our dognity.
