DEATH BY WEEDING

The pre-Socratic philosopher
Empedocles
Wished to conflate
His Death
With his total Disappearance
From the planet.

This was four Centuries
Before Jesus is reputed
To have achieved that same goal.
But Empedocles Failed.
An errant sandal Survived
His plunge into a Volcano.

The philosopher was attempting
His mystical Union with
The Divine
In an extreme act
Of engagement with
Elemental Fire.

Do I throw myself
Into the Tocalote patch
Expecting some Heavenly
Revelation? No, I am there
To restore order to a little
Patch of the planet.

Yet by removing
The residuum of Vegetative
Colonization, I am enfolded
Into a Nature where shed snakeskins
May be gently Plucked
From prey-animal burrows.

Translucent
And delicately imbricated
The flaccid skins of
Nameless writhing snakes
Invite a strange
And vertiginous Rapture.