Addenda

Three lines were inadvertently dropped from
Al Zolynas' "A Different Life" in PI2.
Here is the poem as it should have appeared.
 

A DIFFERENT LIFE

Al Zolynas
 

Say, instead of your suburban tract house

here in Southern California

you lived on a remote island in Indonesia,

your house in a tree, one hundred and fifty feet

above the forest floor, your first act each morning

before your feet touched mother earth,

the careful and conscious descent down

a series of connected, notched poles, the family dog

slung under your arm, a spear in hand,

your bare toes gripping

the carved steps, everything swaying and wanging

in what wind there might be.

You descend with attention from sleep and domesticity to earth--

the slightest slip could find you dead

on the duff, sightless eyes staring at the forest canopy above.

Or is this noble-savage life also steeped in dull habit?

For you, life-time tree-dweller, no learned fear of heights,

is this jungle life just routine, as in another life,

your token two-way glance at the stop sign as you roll through,

coffee mug in hand on your way to work, lost once more

in the dream you call your life?