Big Men Speaking to Little Men

Slowly the black snake severs the path
all four feet of him with forked
tongue that constantly tastes the world
sentinel to the length of the body

laying bare the interval
between the hell-bent trail-bikers
and the big men speaking to little men
conspiratorially in the forest

sotto voce there are places
the faintest trails created by lines
of desire an elsewhere interwoven
with here and everlastingly now

the doors they lead to are oddly chamfered
open to admit the random
molecule in or out the bit
of information no one sent

to anyone this clearing's a wild
field the universe may have been
someone's orchard overgrown
now with herbs and loosestrife

the big men say use this scattering
build cities from the strewn seeds
until the infinitesimal
sings to us in unwitting chorus

these are the carriage paths that lead
out of the nineteenth century down
into the ramifying great
wilderness of less and least

big little men stroll secretly holding
the world at bay but at any scale
confused with the day's late shadows a black
snake comes and takes itself away

Copyright © 2006 Philip Fried All rights reserved
from Big Men Speaking to Little Men
Salmon Poetry
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission