Corn Mask

It hangs on a white wall, its face

a deft weave of corn husks.

I stand close to it, face to face,

and, even so, I can’t quite look

eye to eye with it,

its deep-set vision

set at a tilt that reminds me

of the springtime tilt of the earth’s own axis

and large spirit.

The nose is a small blunt cob. No ears.

Hair, a rustle of corn shucks

where the maker of the mask tied off

the weave. Mouth, a tubular

pucker—a wind hole for howl or owl call

or shamanic cry.

And because I have always wanted

to be a footpath for spirits,

I take it down from the wall

and slide my fingers along the weave

of its skin, then put my face

into its face—

now

the moment smells of husk

and dust. It smells of smoke.

What kind of smoke are you? I ask.

Not long ago,

in Paradise, California,

the fires burned so hot,

they cremated what once had flesh,

and hair, bone and tooth and claw.

And the world is still burning.

The world is burning

and can’t smell its own smoke.

But as I breathe in the smoke and the silence,

it speaks, the mask speaks

in a vernacular of silence.

No, I reply,

I don’t want to live in the past

or in a dream of a future Earth that somehow

survives us.

I put on this mask of husks and dust

because I want to live

now,

in accordance with laws

that once linked the body of corn

to the earth and to the sky,

laws that once guided rainstorms,

migrations, and seasons.

I want to be in touch with

laws that govern

electrons, wetlands, mitochondria,

and geothermal fields;

with the laws that may still guide

sperm whales on their journeys

through the seas,

their underwater trumpet calls

the loudest on the planet.

I want to respond to this life

with the sanity

that times the arrival of bees

with the breakout of blossoms,

with the precision

and chemistry

that makes an oak tree root-sensitive

to the welfare

of neighboring oaks.

I want to live in the spirit of strict

pleasure,

a form of generosity

that allows for an earthbound humanity.

Spirit of the corn mask, stay close,

stay close.

Let me learn, if it’s not too late,

how to be a creature of the earth,

in love with the life

of the earth,

as if it were my own.