Question: can a platypus reach enlightenment?

The Death of the Platypus

The sickness of crystal weighed on the mind of the platypus
With the heaviness of water and the half-lives of stars
Under his fur he remembered the rain of the meteors
And he cried for the creatures of the earth's first night
The platypus cried in his subtle voice of giraffes
For the white kingdoms of chalk and the abandoned coral cities
He cried for the passing ferns and the chaste maidenhairs
He cried for the blindness of molluscs and the deafness of fish
He cried for unlit stone lilies at the sea bottom
And for the Arctic poppy and rose
The platypus cried for brave beginnings
For the launching of sea snails and for hummingbirds lost at sea
He cried for victims
For the sea mice preyed on by cod and for krill
He cried for lemmings under the snow
The platypus cried for the killers
For insatiable shrews and starving weasels
He cried for the spendthrift seed
For the glut of salmon spawn and the lost flags of dandelion
He cried for the sorrows of parents
For the dead infants of sea otters and bereaved sea horses
For drowned seal pups and smashed eggs in the rookeries
He cried for the frangible wings of insects
The elytra of beetles and the nervures of flies
He cried for the spongy antlers of deer and the hollow narwhal horn
He cried for heavy bodied birds
For condors that must wait for the wind and for moas stuck in the mud
He cried for the foolish ground pigeon and the lonely solitaire
The platypus in his great grief cried without discretion or measure
His tears sank deep into the ground where they corroded aluminum
And his great heart caved in like the quenched walls of the sun.

--David Antin

fr. Trobar 1 (1960)
and in David Antin & Charles Bernstein, A Conversation
with David Antin

[New York: Granary Books, 2002]



- The platypus is the only mammal known to be venomous.

- The chief time for the production of platypus venom is the platypus breeding season. Platypus venom is secreted only by the male platypus.

- A platypus should never be handled, except in an emergency.

- Because platypus neuromorphology is so unusual in that it has no pre-frontal lobes, it is highly unlikely the animal can become an Enlightened One. If it behaves, it can later, perhaps, be reborn as a human. At which time it will have a greater chance of reaching enlightenment. But only if it works RILLY HARD.

Interview at "P. F. S. Post: Maximum Post-Avant" about Rhode Island Notebook 

and the religion of literature

[thanks to Adam Fieled for his interest and for his great questions]