When God Rested

When God Rested

Bret Hesla © 2017

The human God
Is all about love and family,
and sometimes strife.
And the people will tell you that
After god made the people
God rested on the next day.

Now the insect God
has six legs
and compound eyes
And the insects will tell you that
After god made the insects
God rested on the next day.

The rock God
is three in one
Igneus, sedimentary, and metamorphic
And the rocks will tell you that
After god made the rocks
God rested on the next day.

The mushroom God
lives in the dark damp heaven below
And occasionally sends up her son
to live and die on the earth so that
other mushrooms may live.
And the mushrooms will tell you that
After god made the mushrooms
God rested on the next day.

The algae God
Is small and green
And never dries out for long
And the algae will tell you that
After god made the algae
God rested on the next day.

The cat God
has whiskers and purrs
In the deep shag carpet
by a warm sunny window
And the cats will tell you that
After god made the cats
God rested on the next day.

The emptyness God
Is never there
And cannot be grasped
And the void will tell you that
After god made the emptiness
God rested on the next day.

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Words by Bret Hesla.
© 2017 Bret Hesla. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Licensed via OneLicense.net, Contact: Bret.hesla@gmail.com.

Reader: Larry Dittberner

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A while back, I read a book called The Myth of Human Supremacy, by Derrick Jensen. He covers the whole cascading disaster, from economies to science to arts to religion to you name it, caused by believing and acting as if we are the top.

This playful poem pokes a little at that rotten core.

To Connect More Deeply

To Connect More Deeply With Nature
Bret Hesla © 2017

To connect more deeply with nature
Is a responsibility
We cannot preserve what we don’t come to love through touch and play
To sustain the earth, we must do more than purchase green products
We must touch the greenness and hurry up about it
Before it has all broken off the branches and fallen, brittle and useless
We must notice the spider chasing its prey in the cracks between bricks in our musty happy basements

To connect more deeply with nature
Is becoming a narrow privilege.
More and more it is only those with enough wealth and comfort
We who have the means and the time,
To carbon footprint our way across thousands of miles
To visit and be renewed in the majesty of earth’s dwindling beauty
Of course, the poor have the weeds growing around the front steps
While the well-off have whale tours in Alaskan fjords
Snorkeling with sea turtles in the Caribbean
And afternoons strolling through botanical gardens
After which we are on fire for preservation

To connect more deeply with nature
Is a pleasure
As the healing lotion of crane calls
and the aloe whispering of aspen leaves
soften the permanent scowl
of we, the screen starers
Until the relaxed face of wonder
Takes us beyond cheap smiling
Into the place outside of time,
Step follows step deeper into the head-high grasses of the bliss prairie
Till at some point our old eyes reassert themselves
And we look around, baffled but not concerned
And we wonder how in the world we ended up here
Next to these lovely, pulsing stands of leafy stemmy god-ness.

Reader: Larry Dittberner
Words by Bret Hesla.
© 2017 Bret Hesla. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Licensed via OneLicense.net, Contact: Bret.hesla@gmail.com.

Biker’s Prayer

This is my prayer for the bikers I see
Everywhere on the streets of the Twin Cities
Sailing down the lanes painted just for them
As they go gracefully on their commute to work

Just a few years ago there weren’t that many riders
But then something flipped
And whatever it was
I would sure like to have some of it bottled
To pass out at certain powerpoint-weary meetings I’ve been stuck in

This is my prayer for the bikers I see everywhere
To give them a bit of a hill to coast down
And a safe slalom ride through the potholes, past prairie-coneflower yards
And a calm to ignore the occasional middle finger “get off the road” drivers
And I pray that an eight-color madness of beauties
Bless this city we live in and bike through

This is my prayer for the bikers I see
Those alien, helmeted pedalers
Beguiling the harried car drivers
to someday consider
The workout of going to work
in the fresh air of morning
And what a morning it is, when
those bikers, undaunted by sweet siren thoughts
of saving ten minutes by driving,
mount up after oatmeal and coffee
Don the green jacket, florescent and shameless
Tuck the right pant leg into their right sock, (how dorky)
And set off pedaling new days onto their life expectancy

This is my prayer for the bikers — us bikers
well, now that we’ve started the journey of slowness,
of “how fast I get there is not most important,”
Pretty soon we’ll start looking at the folks who are walking
and think, hmmmmm, what if I got up even a half hour earlier
And walked myself off to work
without needing to tuck in my right pant leg?
Until finally, that glacial commute of two legs on the sidewalk
Becomes so alluring and so irresistible
That we slow it all down, walk,
and spend even less time at the breakfast table reading the paper
and whatever else it was I intended to do
with that time I saved by getting to work faster.

To me, it all feels subconsciously right
As if three million years of evolution
might make more sense
Than a hundred bleak years
slouched in a faster mode of getting from point A to point B
For money to spend at point C
for food you bring back and eat at point A
On a brick patio covering what used to be a good-sized garden.

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Reader: Catherine Malotke
Words by Bret Hesla.
© 2017 Bret Hesla. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Licensed via OneLicense.net, Contact: Bret.hesla@gmail.com.