like a tired man —
wind tapped boldly answered —
entered then within

Adapted from The Wind — tapped like a tired Man by Emily Dickinson

The Wind — tapped like a tired Man —
And like a Host — ”Come in”
I boldly answered — entered then
My Residence within

A Rapid — footless Guest —
To offer whom a Chair
Were as impossible as hand
A Sofa to the Air —

No Bone had He to bind Him —
His Speech was like the Push
Of numerous Humming Birds at once
From a superior Bush —

His Countenance — a Billow —
His Fingers, as He passed
Let go a music — as of tunes
Blown tremulous in Glass —

He visited — still flitting —
Then like a timid Man
Again, He tapped — ’twas flurriedly —
And I became alone —

I am so tired.

A sofa to the air is just about right.

I have no bones to bind me and I let go music as blown in tremulous in glass.

Along in again all inside my head.

otherness of what
may have happened millions of
years ago come gone

Adapted from the quote of Geoffrey Rush where he says:

I’m just completely obsessed by the otherness of what’s out there. Everyone says one day they’ll suddenly go: “There’s been definite communication with beings or creatures or overdeveloped insects that went into a different direction. They’re making contact with us.” The magnitude of it all! But that may not even happen. It may have happened millions of years ago and come and gone.

In the article, ‘Geoffrey Rush on Pirates, Pinter and pugs: ‘Just be happy we evolved on this bit of rock’ by Catherine Shoard on March 27, 2025.

I’m just completely obsessed by the otherness of what’s out there.

Everyone says one day they’ll suddenly go: “There’s been definite communication with beings or creatures or overdeveloped insects that went into a different direction. They’re making contact with us.”

The magnitude of it all!

But that may not even happen.

It may have happened millions of years ago and come and gone.

As Mr. Fermi would ask, “Where are the von Neumann machines?”

Which pointed folks in the direction that if there WAS intelligent life in the universe, why had they not developed the type of machines predicted by John von Neumann and that those machines should have been here by now.

According to one website, “A Von Neumann Machine is defined as a computer system that follows the von Neumann architecture, characterized by a centralized control unit, primary memory for storing instructions and data, an arithmetic and logic unit for operations, and a register bank for storing intermediate results.”

In other word, they built, regenerated and sustained themselves, making them the perfect means of space travel.

Since they didn’t show, they hadn’t been built.

Since they hadn’t been built, there was no intelligent life.

Then again, perhaps as Mr. Rush puts it, it may have happened millions of years ago and come and gone.

Or maybe, the fact that they have been to Earth and leave us alone proves just how intelligent the life forms out there really are.

knowing that time stops
when heart stops walk off the earth
into the night air

Marching by Jim Harrison

At dawn I heard among birdcalls
the billions of marching feet in the churn
and squeak of gravel, even tiny feet
still wet from the mother’s amniotic fluid,
and very old halting feet, the feet
of the very light and very heavy, all marching
but not together, crisscrossing at every angle
with sincere attempts not to touch, not to bump
into each other, walking in the doors of houses
and out the back door forty years later, finally
knowing that time collapses on a single
plateau where they were all their lives,
knowing that time stops when the heart stops
as they walk off the earth into the night air.

As printed in Jim Harrison: The Complete Poems by Jim Harrison and Copper Canyon Press.

As it says in the preface – or epigram – or prologue or as it is labeled, Editor’s Note:

Poetry, at its best, is the language your soul would speak if you could teach your soul to speak.

Jim Harrison