Dane Cervine Writes

New poem in CAESURA poetry journal

The San Jose Poetry Center produces Caesura magazine, and in 2012 published an elegant edition themed with poems related to the millennium, the end of the world, and other endings. I'm glad to have a new poem included in this year's edition, entitled A Great Civilization.

If you'd like to own a beautiful copy of this year's Caesura, email the San Jose Poetry Center to order a copy.

 

A Great Civilization

In the island forests of Bolivia before

any white man found them, the Arawak

cultivated lianas thick as a human arm,

blade-like leaves dangling six feet long

and smooth-boled Brazil nut trees,

the thick-bodied flowers smelling like warm meat.

Earth mounds rose above waters cultivated as canals

for travel between spacious villages framed

by moats and palisades, along which they’d walk

in long cotton tunics, heavy ornaments dangling

from wrists and necks. But in 1927,

anthropologists found their descendents living

in constant hunger, no clothes,

no cows or llamas,

no musical instruments,

no art—except necklaces of animal teeth—

unable to count beyond three, no religion,

no conception of the universe. They

thought they’d stumbled upon a primitive

humankind living in the rawness of nature

for millennia—unaware that when the first

Europeans arrived centuries before, influenza

and smallpox raced ahead, bringing

the Arawak to their knees. And no one

knew, till now: scientists piecing together

records of teeth, shards of pottery,

eco-analysis and voila!

a great mysterious culture heretofore

unknown emerged from the mists

of history. Might we too—

this culture of moon travel,

the great web of internet,

an entire library of world music

in the palm of a hand—one day

be discovered again, as

barefoot entrepreneurs

having lost it all.

ESALEN poem in Red Wheelbarrow 2012

Ken Weisner edits the longrunning poetry journal Red Wheelbarrow. This year a poem of mine entitled "Esalen" was included:

 

Esalen

 

In the dark bar—

wooden tables, black chairs, colored Christmas lights—

she says There is more grace in the world than we can see,

says her small boy

will never speak, devilish gene robbing him

of voice, fingers—but his shaman eyes appear

in people’s dreams, speaking there

what cannot be said here. One day,

a passing Buddhist monk stopped

at his baby carriage, asked to pay respects

to such a teacher. There is more grace

 

in this world than you can see echoes another

of her brother the psychedelic seeker, lost

chasing the Gordian knot of consciousness,

spiking his coffee with magic mushrooms

which she drank, unknowingly, during a visit.

Later, as she stopped her car on the ridge to view

phantasmagoric pine, undulating asphalt,

she glimpsed for a few hours the landscape

her brother cannot escape. Outside the bar,

 

down the hill in the warm sulfur baths,

a Brazilian healer prays over the tumors

in another friend’s belly, the waves

beneath the cliffs sounding a kind of grace.

In this morning, she will come to us at breakfast

at this same wooden table, say

she wants more of this, the only life she knows.

This one, where she is eating oatmeal

in small spoonfuls, in a black chair,

lips savoring dark sugar, sweet milk.