The Man on the Mountain

THE MAN ON THE MOUNTAIN

FIRST STANZA

As you sit down
to turkey, pie, and potatoes,
what are you thankful for ?

For the misery
of the year that's passed,
or the uncertainity
of the year that is to come ?

For the farmers
that are paid not to farm,
or that are ruined
by taxes, the weather, or the banks ?

For the native Americans,
the Indians that gave us maze,
standing there
like frightened children,
extending their hands in friendship,
insuring our survival in this hostile land,
while we robbed, raped, beat, infected,
and assimilated them ?

For the fat tom-turkeys,
bred like idiot rabbits,
hopped up on growth hormones,
and slaughtered like lemming
all in a line,
to grace out holiday tables ?

For the new cars
and new homes
and art treasures
that our religious leaders enjoy
with priviledged aloofness ?

Yes, the pilgrims brought God
to the table,
but what did the Indians give up
so freely,
in order to join the feast ?


SECOND STANZA

Thanksgiving,
another holiday mandate
to mobilize within mammoth cathedrals,
and be saved from and for
our mortal sins,
deep in the smoky shadow
of the pulpit,
while priests, preachers, shamen,
ministers, and rabbis
mantled in gold,
eyes ablaze,
with voices squealing and squacking
in tongues
of languages long dead,
pass baskets, trays, tamborines, and hats,
until the coffers are filled
with tax-free revenue,
praise Jesus,
blessed income,
praise Allah,
money from the multitudes,
praise Buddha,
cents from sinners,
praise Mohammad,
and dollars from dopes,
providing
stifled worship within
dimly lit incense-clogged cadaverous caverns
that are all
santified, certified, blessed, and erected holy;
adobe brick wooden steel golden glass silver ice
plastic palaces of the the many Lords.

Yet in spite of the enormity of all this,
in the yellowed teeth of it,
for some men
there is as much of God
in an open sewer
as there is
on the ceiling of the sistine chapel;
as much holiness and sanctity
in industrial waste
as there is in the entire city of the Vatican.

The man on the mountain,
clearly knows what he is thankful for,
venison berry trout,eagle wolf bear,clouds sky seasons;
merely a solitary leaf
in flight,
the shape of a towering thunderhead,
the silence deep
in a dense forest;
his joyful face reflected
in a clear glacial pool,
the wind in his hair,
the sun on his lips.
Just a tranquil moment
peering through thick green needles
past the rugged yellow bark
of a jack pine,
at a sky
that is God,
and is
forever.


Glenn Buttkus 1987