The exuberant invitation and a reflection

Ring bell to enter
(Image by pburka)   Details   DMCA

So glad you are coming down!

Stay as long as you want.

Everything that is ours is yours.

Be sure to bring your Prozac and your Zantac and your kayak

And your yak.

The camel will be so happy to see the yak.

You can sleep in the boardroom

Which has been heavenly quiet since the break-up.

Bring your Bhagavad Gita;

We love it when you read in Sanskrit.

It quiets the monkeys down.

Oh and we will make sure the trick doorbell works.

Ha, ha.

And don't worry about the things.

They all returned to Carmel in January,

And we are just dying to hear about your new job

On the moon. We are so proud of you.

So proud! Crazy proud, aren't we sweetheart. .

Oh, and we tuned the gamelon.

Yes, yes, really.

It's never sounded so . . . mystical.

................

I think this poem is making light of how the veil of maya is beginning to disintegrate these days. Who's crazy? Who's investing in the unraveling? Who's birthing new visions and who's going down with the ship while the band plays ? Who's adapting to climate change and who is waking in a sweat in the middle of the night asking, "What are we doing?" "My god, what can I do?" Who's drinking the cool-aid and who's making kombucha? Who's throwing away their credit cards and who's shopping at Target for whatever is on sale? Who's picking up litter and who's littering? Who's saying American First and who's saying, Humanity First? The family in this poem is a family that has no grip on reality. Their world is a melange of values, a jigsaw-puzzle of cultural oddities. I'm making fun of how people dabble in spirituality and other cultures without dealing with their own troubled souls.

The point of this poem is to enjoy a laugh at these ridiculously out of touch people who are "crazy proud" of their visitor who is "coming down" from his job on the moon to spend his vacation with them and bringing his kayak and yak, only to realize that most of us are living lives that are, say, to someone from an older non-materialistic culture, off the wall, surrealistic and utterly unsustainable.