Civil Engineers, blind to the designs they create. Road builders as minute as the worm eat so that they may move, moving in order to consume. They assist in the decay of fallen trees and the crumbling of stone, insuring that the life pulled from the earth to support the giant is returned; repaid in full an extended loan.

Cut into the earthen skin of a New Mexico plateau, Chaco Canyon was once the home of the Anasazi. Skilled laborers carved at the solid rock, forming vertical stair cases and footpaths hundreds of miles long in order to conduct centuries of trade and travel. Their walled ruins remain as a testimony to one of this continent’s most incredible civilizations.

We are so pleased with ourselves when our hands have created objects that survive a few hundred years, a millennia, or more. But the breath of two thousand degrees consumes road, humans, and their homes. The mountains that the flowing rivers of lava envision and rush to fulfill persist for millions of years after we are gone. Our feeble attempts at mourning for the dead will go unnoticed when the fossils of ancient life lie secure in their earthen bed.

I have seen walls that welcome the light of the desert, morning sun. I have been within buildings who’s baked clay and mortar kept prisoners from freezing; alive so that they could be slain the following day. I have placed my hand on the walls that felt the radiance of bullets whose projectile paths were stained with a human heart.

Some walls hold within.
Some walls hold out.
Others cannot bare
the burden we
place on
them
and
fall in doubt.

© Kai Staats 1994

remain standing.
stay within the confined and uncomfortable space.

the one I feared most for his relentless battle cry of individuality without concern for those whom he battles.

the failure of my design.
i am now trapped inside my own strangling border.
I had merely intended to record my production.

i’d rather not get involved.
these people are haili and kicky.

those who remove the borders, cut down the barriers, topple the governments, preach to the mindful, and attempt to install a soul, a conscience.

dare to reach out and grab the knife, cut the border down, jam the droning machine that damns the futile attempts of the populous to remain individual and in power of their own lives.

turn the machine against those who installed its monitor gray eye.

the flight of ethiopians; their midnight swim to the anchor chain of the seabound vessel.
the naming of the battle their sister fights.

bring down what you know is wrong in hope of replacement by the right. without maps there could be no holy war. without borders there could be no conquering of territory or ownership of land.

god’s earth should not be divided into battling camps of raving fools.

© Kai Staats 1993

Intent on blue, hear only white. Feel the ground shake with the passing of the brown, gray, rolling brown and gray again. For days there is red, mountains liquefied at the source. It moves, shapes, carves, scrapes, and defines the valley of Deep Creek.

The racing water is a visual and auditory conglomerate as complex as the motion of the stones that it causes to collide. The music it generates is white, noise to some and a melody to others. White noise confusion. A constant wash that makes difficult hearing without raised voices. Small motions are lost in the wake of the large. The structural waves crumble and the entire mass of water rushes to the same goal.

The language of dolphins and whales: intricate, sensitive microphones scan for sounds the human ear cannot perceive. They amplify, rectify, verify, and qualify for the appetites of hungry scientists. The same patterns, the same intent, shifted into a different portion of the spectrum. The translation is justified as the means to communication. But how do we sound to them?

Within the rumble, the noise, the unbound frequencies, there is a communication seldom heard. Given a face, the creek smiles in its earthen bed, shaded by the aspen and fir high above the industrial wasteland. But the regiment of gravity is a relentless force and the motion is always down. The smile distorts; a frown intercedes. The course is altered, the bed filled with silt, the covalent bonds plugged with eager toxins.

If the creek were given hands, its multifold digits would draw a melody to touch the hearts of all that listen. With the voice of banshees, every stream on this continent would fill the air with pain. The greedy politicians, the avid industrialists, and those who just don’t give a damn would fall to the call of the sirens at sea, drowning in their own nuclear demise.

And if the creek had feet, and articulate legs whose muscles swirled with transparent sound, perhaps it would climb from the banks of its polluted channel to begin again on higher ground.

© Kai Staats 1993

the litter lined alleys
and gutters full of trash,
the naked children cry for their mother’s milk
but the stations have run dry

the brown haze hangs low,
the selfish majority drive their cars,
the power lines buzz and gunshots roar,
but i am content because i know–

somewhere, across the mighty sea
is a place that i want to be,
in the charm of a woman whose arms
where made to hold me

taxes spent on last month’s rent
for a leased nuclear arsenal,
government ploys to employ mere boys
to the office of president

the tv is on,
the imagination has gone,
our children are simple ones or zeros,
but i am content because i know–

that if we spent our rent
on a flower garden,
the leaders of nations would hold hands
and share laughter with the exchange of a rose

“I love to hug a bug in a rug.”

Pacific Oaks School
Pasadena, California
1976