If This Is Paradise

The true mystery of the world is the visible. . .
                                                   -- Oscar Wilde

If this is paradise:  trees, beehives,
boulders.  And this:  bald moon, shooting
stars, a little sun.  If in your hands
this is paradise:  sensate flesh,
hidden bone,  your own eyes
opening, then why should we speak?
Why not lift into each day like the animals
that we are and go silently
about our true business:  the hunt
for water, fat berries, the mushroom's
pale meat, tumble through waist-high grasses
without reason, find shade and rest there,
our limbs spread beneath the meaningless sky,
find the scent of the lover
and mate wildly.  If this is paradise
and all we have to do is be born and live
and die, why pick up the stick at all?
Why see the wheel in the rock?
Why bring back from the burning fields
a bowl full of fire and pretend that it's magic?

Dorianne Laux