A Little Mumba

   In two billion years
   the expanding sun will dry the oceans,
   meanwhile, life has been around for more
   than two billion years. Thus,
   life on earth is at least half over.

   There is not a lot of time
   to get this figured.

   Three geographers hike
   an unknown South Sea Island,
   raising minor mountains on their
   field maps.

   Suddenly they're pounced
   on by a hidden tribe, grimacing
   and wild. Brought before the tribal
   council, chief expounds
   their choices: death or Mumba.

   The first says, I don't know Mumba,
   but death is bad.
   So Mumba.

   The crowd, elated,
   yells Mumba! throws the geographer
   into a pit and goes in after. Hours later,
   out staggers the stranger, naked
   and deeply rearranged. Does not
   respond to any name.
   Tribal council

   asks the second: Death or Mumba?
   Again, the answer comes Mumba; again,
   crowd hip-checks the outsider, plunders in
   after, voracious and obscene. Again, after
   many hours, out crawls the map-maker,
   bedraggled, strained, and chewed.

   Tribal council
   asks a last time, Death or Mumba?
   Geographer looks into the pit,
   up at the stars, and says, I want
   to live, but I am not as strong as they.
   I must choose death. The crowd
   is silent. A wise decision,
   says the chieftain, Death by Mumba.

   Right.

   It is hard to get through
   without deciding against human
   interaction. What stings we feel
   are ferocious, inadmissible,
   unseemly They linger and steam.
   Thus the right-thinking runt
   shuts them down, apes the machine.

   But in the end, friends,
   it's either Mumba or death by Mumba,
   so Mumba's better.

   But oh my life, the Mumba of it all.
   The unyielding Mumbasity of life, of life
   with others, in particular, oh my time.

   What are you so frightened of?
   Of what are you so frightened?

   The universe, for instance, has
   clusters of galaxies, we are not jealous
   of their cliques: and these galaxies are
   so big that they make the difference in size
   between us and a fly, well, negligible.

   The chatter has so little to do with anything
   that is the matter.

   You've got to figure: they planned this trip
   together, the three geographers, Hinty, Luce,
   and Spoon, since June, and now it's April
   and they're on this island measuring
   and counting, mapping and sleeping in a
   canvas tent and out comes this thoroughly
   other from the bushes. Then it's the bum's rush
   to the tribal council, wide-eyed terrified.

   You hear yourself say, Mumba doesn't sound
   so bad, and then you are lost to it,
   drawn in, engaged in battle, though you hate
   to wrangle, there you are.

   A long time later, the onslaught abating,
   your resistance subsides as they do, and once
   alone, you crawl in the powdery dirt
   toward the lip of the pit. One of those

   against whom you struggled
   grips your elbow, lifts you over.
   You hug the earth as vertigo hugs her
   after a stint in the tower. From this supine state
   you watch Spooner and Luciotta as one makes
   the same choice you made,
   and the other goes in for the other.
   A fly goes by, in its minor role of fly.

   There is a great deal of action, but you
   are out of it now, not yet certain whether
   you will live through this or die. You do not
   know when anyone at home will notice
   that your trip has gone awry. You think
   of your front yard, all the effort of youth,
   the apologies. Perhaps you die now,
   and all that work come to nothing,
   come to Mumba on a mild night, alone.
   You've got dirt in your mouth and on a whim,
   instead of spitting, you stick out your tongue
   and taste the soft, cool earth beneath you.
   You roll yourself over;
   stare up at the ten thousand stars.

   Crushed between the galactic world
   and all these subatomic particles
   is so much emotion: anger, pity, relief
   and this emotion, though emanating
   from such an inconsequential thing
   as you, is as large a total
   as is the cosmos, and elemental
   as electrostatic charge.

   Neither black holes nor spider nets
   await us. Other webs do, but we are not
   the size of solitude either, so must
   accept them. It is good to remember
   that our troubles only obtain
   on this median scale of play; elsewhere is
   unaware of them. All, then, we've
   ever needed is a minute change in scale.

   One of the wild ones is a poet, whispers in your
   supine ear to confess and to remind: My love
   has me lolling around a crater
   on the moon, sucking wheat stalks.
   Your bruised heart overtakes your senses.

   I don't know whether you want
   to hear it or not, but the next night
   everyone is dancing,
   the babies and the crazies and the flies,
   under the spangled, leaf-framed sky,
   and you can't help it, you join in.
   That's how good dancing is.

Jennifer Michael Hecht. a poet and historian of science, is a professor of history at Nassau Community College. She is the author of two books of poetry, The Next Ancient World. and Funny, as well as the nonfiction works. Doubt: A History, and The End of the Soul.

COPYRIGHT 2006 Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning