The Rational Man

There is danger in the voice of the rational man
He has never hurled his body into the river
Just to see the fish at the bottom eye-to-eye
There is an unmatched brutality in his voice
When he says words like “never” and “stop”
We feel so ashamed in our tattered clothes
Like naked pilgrims in the hayfield at night
Who, as the breeze rolls across the grasses,
Feed their children, and wipe their eyes
Beneath the constellations
Early October made the rational man cold
And he points his fingers at us
“You,” he says, “cannot be here any longer.”
And so we wipe summer from our feet
And draw back the hair from over our eyes
So we can see the rational man before we leave
His eyes do not hold truth like the fish in the river
Or the constellations in the hayfield at night
They are creek stones
Blackened beneath the shallow waters
On the banks, near the mosses
And so we leave the rational man alone
We leave our homes and our lives
For it seems fitting to be irrational