Vox Populi
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Michael Simms: Oh God She Says
Oh God she says The dog has learned to spell And suddenly the whole universe Makes sense it’s a living breathing Cell with ribosomes and Mitochondria and a tail and Things hanging out of its mouth Like spittle and we are lying beneath The table waiting for food to drop From the beings having dinner above And we decipher meaning only if It confirms what we already Want as if nothing exists except Our desire and nothing has permanence Unless we see it today and tomorrow We leave the room and the chair is still There and I think of Feynman’s marvelous Universe this tremendous range of time And space and different kinds of animals And all the different planets and all these Atoms with their motions are merely A stage so God can watch human beings Struggle for good and evil or if we want A bigger stage because as Gracie Allen says never put a period where God has placed a comma we Can demand answers To the unanswerable and adopt The uncertainty and Embrace the mysteries we now Experience so of course we Are all agnostics but we can’t stop There we have to move Toward understanding God And embrace the true mysteries Of the universe which are different Than the mysteries which confounded People thousands of years ago and As Gracie says I don’t see what Difference it makes what side Your bread is buttered because I always eat both sides and so I’m always uncertain of anything Except the most basic answers as when Josie learns T-R-E-A-T Refers to her constant desire.
From American Ash (Ragged Sky 2020) by Michael Simms. Copyright 2020.
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wonderful!
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Thanks, Abby!
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I want to hug Josie and feed her treats. She is very like my dear Roscoe P. Brought a tear to my eye looking at her begging so earnestly in this photo.
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Yes, she and Roscoe P could have been litter mates!
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I’m going to read this poem to Tashi. Maybe I’ll teach her endoplasmic reticulum. I think she already knows how to spell walk.
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Yes, Josie learned the words treat and walk and park, so we started spelling them, but she learned to spell. Now we have to speak in code around her and keep changing the code or she will learn those words as well.
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Tashi just jumped onto the bed. That means, “get up. I want to go out.”
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She teaches me
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Gorgeous! What wisdom dogs have. And us, too, wise enough to learn from them.
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Yes, Josie is a perfect Buddhist. I’ve learned so much from her.
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One of the best.
It looks at the whole as one and the one as whole. Very brilliant poem.
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Thank you so much, Saleh! I love your translations!
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