DOWN IS NOT UP
(Encomium for e.e. Cummings)

Down with the collective
let us just live for
and adjust to
our creative circumstances
forgetting the stupor
in the long human story
that our prayer language
without any consistory
will engage to forgive us
for our twentieth century's
totalitarian history
as we sing out at the mike
an unlikely jazz chorus
with riffs on sax
with e.e. Cummings
as if to make us relax
when we madly squandered
our age in sectarian sedition
from a hundred bogus ways
in living and diving
like on a swan wings span
upon the ocean's torpor
as he motions his wings
for us to be free
as in a mirror seen
from our life's abyss
when we in our lethargy
with several chances
change from past strife
as in a metamorphosis
of everlasting energy
within a dawn of dances
knowing our down time
is not up
as we can drink
from our own can or cup
and not be sorry
to think individually
arising from our branches
in a sleepy hollow
of a fir or juniper tree.