∴

i found the answer to a riddle
and was contended
for a time –

intelligence gives such fleeting
and pedantic
satisfaction

like an autographed photo
of a star you’ll never meet;

evidence of greatness
by proximity

only.

i think i liked it better
when the riddle was
still a riddle

and my mind chewed the possibilities
like fine little mint leaves
that refreshed
over and over.

to not know
and to want to know
and to be sure
there is something
worth knowing,

swells the heart with possibility
and makes trailheads of tomorrows
and keeps the journeyer
– the question answerer
– the patient ponderer

from degrading the destination
with finality of fact.

i think

i think

i will go on…

∴

∴

here is what i know
about one year:

in it,

hearts can widen or close.

roads can be taken
or walked off of.

hands can be held
or released.

the mind can grow with wonder
or harden with fear.

bread can be broke and spent
or held and stale.

but the time –

the time can only move on.

for all the choices
we make
in it,

one year

is continuously
made.

∴

∴

i have traced the outlines
of masterpieces –

it is half my life
i’ve spent so doing.

there are so many masters
in this world –

and the lines they draw
on canvas and paper
make a maze
wide enough
to occupy one’s whole life,

pursuing the
labyrinth’s center
wherein nothing
secretly lies –

and have found myself
skilled mostly
in facsimile.

it makes me feel strange
and alone.

am i such a shadow
and shader of opaque shapes?

could i find myself brave enough
to bear my own simplicity
and simply be
as i’ve been made?

∴

∴

in the spring
i burn the winter growth.

i call it winter growth,
but it did not grow in winter.

it grew wild and green,
unpruned and blooming,
in the hot and thirsty days
and died at last
under mounds of ice
and white tears.

it is dusted by the seasons preceding
and drowned in sun-washed brown.

the fires burn for hours
and slow
so that they do not flare
and spread
and singe
that which would grow again.

it is necessary

else i cannot take these seedlings –
sweet,
tender,
fragile
inside dwellers,
looking out at partial suns
and waxing moons
from the windows of glass houses –
and set them out

in the open.

∴

∴

i knew a man
who had been to war.

he fought
as he was taught
and some things
he remembers doing

and some things
he forgets
every day,
and on purpose.

peace was declared
by the mongers
of battle
and he chuckled
at the irony of it all.

with a sigh and a zip,
he packed up
the soft things –
his garments and rags –
and left the hard things –
the powder and steel –
and thought of the men
who signed papers in palaces.

’tis a strange doctor
to cut the skin
and mend it,
broken,
back again.

once home,
and unpacked
he took a new inventory
of all that remained
in the shadow
of risen flags:

some soft things
had been lost in transit,

and some hard things
came home in his bag.

∴

∴

i picked up a leaf
once
that had fallen.

it was larger than the rest
and was brightly vibrant orange.

it fell from a tree
that knew me better.

the days have faded it
and no color
remains

and the shape has withered a bit
and curled.

it recedes on my wall,
like a faded photograph,
yellowed
and old proof

– buried bones –

of every feeling i felt
when i picked that petal up:

i love
i love
i leave

and the tree still knows me

and grows.

∴

∴

is there another way?
does the past hold so much sway,
that i may not
the future see
until i’ve re-writ history?

some twinkling treasures,
some buried thorns,
some thoroughly made,
some roughly torn,

are the memories that
still
and vaporously fill

the mind
the heart
the moving, feeling,
searching part.

may i loose the old idols
to hold the new child
whose marble melted
and fell?

may i keep the meat
that feeds and keeps
while growing
fresh things green?

may i hold it all in singular vision
before and now in light?

or is the eye
open pried
for endlessly
swapping sight?

∴

∴

just as in midwifery,
the young can deliver the old
and bring forth all the new life
that a grown woman has inside her –

and has hidden –

for fear of pain.
for fear of responsibility.

as birth is so wrought with pain
and the new life
so demanding of it’s rights
and resulting incumbencies.

but oh,

life!

it is an intoxicating event
that dies only
by the refusal to bear down
and breathe.

so,
young ones,
take my hand
and press in.

∴