Deep Time

While I watch
the otters
etrash
smolders
in a pile
in Ghana
picked clean
by children
inhaling
lead, copper,
and cancer.

Cellphones sing
Blackberries buzz
digits send lives
through cyberspace
while I watch
the rain come
a breeze rustles
the cattails
where turtles
hibernate in the mud
and the human brain
changes.

Life is a screen
filled with ads
all registered
by neurons
that fire
the brain
like so many
coyote tracks
on a beaver dam
shifting perception
of what it is
to be alive
in the rain.

We surf
for information
while information
is gleaned
from our surfing
we become bundles
of products
traded
like so many
used monitors
scavenged
for metals
by children
hungry
for life.

I watch
otters
on youtube
I see you
on skype
every minute
of every day
blood drips
one drop
at a time
while I open
my eyes
the wired
cavalry
robs
the deep
time.

I read
in the marsh
where once
the trees grew
and how
a storm
came.

I sit
with the wind
the fog
and the dark.

A woodpecker
drums
a hole
in a pine.

As I watch
the otters
the whole
world changes.