at Lake Antiqua, Guatemala dec 2017

In the last fifty years
There are 3 billion less birds living on Earth.
(habit loss, climate change, house cats)
Me, I wasn’t concerned.
Why would birds matter to me?
Here in my Megalopolis, I lived rough on the Street.
Here I obeyed or avoided the law as I liked.
Here I hustled shelter and hoarded stuff…
Once it was all deceit and maneuvering…
Off I ripped… on I tripped...
I got high on whatever… got off whenever I could…
Played the game as a gansta…
I drove around like there was no tomorrow.
I loved sometimes, hurt a lot.
And I was good when I wasn’t bad.

Now I am weeping…
Now I weep for the loss.
O ignorant humanity and O the murderous house cats.
The sooner we’re all gone the better for the birds.

Understand, I have finally made it into the backroom.
Made it off the Street,
Made it into THE Office,... into her headquarters...
Made it through that hustler thug Kali’s Shop,
Made it through all the trinkets and enticements.
I am invited in… know the password… I am invited in…
Invited in.... on back into the backroom...
Into the backroom where the poker is played… and I keep the peace.
My loyalty is to the Power who runs the game,
Is to She who is the House and deals the cards and collects the bets,
My loyalty is now unquestioned.
And I do appreciate the privilege… the privilege of seeing the cards fall…
Fall as they come dealing from the deck.
And I understand…
I understand that the compassion that streams from the heart… that that kindness emanates from the realization of self...
And is the salvation, is the resurrection…
Is the Ark which floats across the calamity.
And I weep still…
For it seems such as the lives of birds do not matter much to anyone anymore.

Crow says, “That thug Kali? Kali is part of the Hindu Trinity. She is the female aspect of the God Shiva, the Destroyer of What Is Created. Her role is to reap those caught in the nets of illusion this world is composed of. She ensnares the mortal in the webs of cause-and-effect. And then, she devours their hearts and lives. She is usually depicted as a many-faced, many-armed demonic entity whose mouth, engorged, drips with the blood of the captured.”