Darwin, in The Descent of Man, states categorically that “only our natural prejudice, and that arrogance which made our forefathers declare that they were descended from demigods,” prevents us from acknowledging our biological descent from the lower animals.

Subcommander Marcos, of the aforementioned EZLN, burst simultaneously onto the Mexican and international scene with all the suddenness and astonishing grace of Athena stepping forth from the head of Zeus.

She was not fortunate in any of those to whom
Her love flowed forth, but somehow wounded hope
Survived betrayal, enabled her to cope . . .

And this scar still hungry
scratching the way volcanoes
reach for nourishing snow
and just above the treeline . . .

Out on the deck,
night is coy,
riffling the ocean, . . .

a poem is walking three paces ahead of me on
the sidewalk, morning sun throwing a
spare effigy of her off her feet into the shrubs ahead . . .

You tell me you
can’t trust what I say,

that I lie about
your hair, the dress, . . .

The fog emptied onto Mission Street, moments before the sun settled down. A man who appeared hardly older than a boy stood on the corner, twisting his head around. At the end of the block, a pale, broken glow spun away from the streetlights.

Poetry remains the refuge from the chaos of an over-stimulated world, where the illusions of celebrity can be had on FaceBook. The solitude of sorrow finds its apotheosis through the prism of poetry, and there is no better example than James R. Whitley’s The Goddess of Goodbye.