I’m fifty-eight percent convinced that
world leaders do not notice
the blood of war trickling
ruin into the veins of
their countrymen.

Sixty-four percent clear that sacred
teachings have an immediate effect on
the sufferings of the dangerously poor,
on tiny insects in the mouths of spiders,
on poisonous outbursts of emotion that
gouge the eye of wisdom.

Seventy-seven percent certain that
silence totes a stinging sword
piercing constructed logic.

Eighty percent certain that stillness
pays for itself, and

Ninety eight percent certain that
the wise, scavenging along the coast,
smiling and scrubbing rocks that
become the mountain,
recognize the burlesque.

DB 2006