---

∴

coming down
from little mountains
used to upset me.

but life
cannot always be lived
up there.

 

for one,
the air is not very good.

it is thin,
and creates one
who is shallow of breath.

 

secondly,
it’s too close to the sun.
all that pressure and light
make the tender parts of you
drip out with the sweat,

along the crevice of your back,
astride Achilles’ trail,
and down.

 

too much time
on top of little mountains
can leather the skin
and make you think you’re taller
than you are.

 

 

of course,
it’s good to go up there,
momentarily.

the view is interesting
and you meet fellow travelers
along the way.

 

but nest in valleys.
there is shade there,
and sweeter water
from the spring.

∴

 

 

---

 

---

∴

there was only ever One

who was there
at the beginning of time,
as i would recall it.

 

who smelled with me,
the sweet and strong musk
of horse sweat and hay,
and leather,
that hung in ropes and stirrups on the walls;
that heard the creaking of a saddle under denim
as familiar as the rain on my bedroom roof,

and who rode down
into dark fields
to look up
at full moons
and be more afraid
of the places i “had to be”
than the wild things
that homed in the wood.

 

 

it was The Same,
who watched
with bowed and smoke-teared eyes
as i dragged my first fag,
and who looked up
years later,
when i set the pack down on a bar –
on Palm Sunday –
and walked away,
for good.

 

this was the One
who laughed while i chased the geckos
in and around the ice plant,
past the little orange tree
that grew on my grandma’s lot,
and called me on the winds
in that strange and silent olive garden
that no one else but me
would play in.

 

this was the One
who held time aside
while i wrecked and bled and broke and hid.

 

this was the One
who held me
while i held them,
all the little ones i fed.

 

and is still the One,
who walks these gravel roads with me
and buzzes ‘round my head
like deer flies and cicada cries,
unyielding,
that i not forget
the company i keep.

 

there was really only ever One,
who walks with me now,
as then,
and will,
in future’s sleep.

∴

 

 

---

 

---

∴

gratitude
comes differently, now.

where once i may have given thanks
for an easy passage
or undeserved bounty,

i can look back
on hard gates
and narrow passages
like fond friends
who stripped me of the needless,
that i would –

might be able to –

enter
precious-er places
therein.

 

satisfaction
comes thusly simpler:

i need no jewel about this wrist –
no bauble to please me upon it –
for look how the soft cuff
of a thick, white robe
falls weighted,
like a lock of hair,
upon the back of my hand.

it is decadent,
and full of love,
to notice these things.

 

the simple acts
of comfort at night
and memory of day

fill

fill

fill me.

∴

 

 

---

 

---

∴

the bravest thing

i’ll ever be

is

peaceful

when

i’m

broken.

∴

 

 

---

 

---

∴

there are some people
that you love
like the wonders of the world.

they are awesome to behold;
breath-taking
and life-giving,
waking you with a shock,
back into yourself,
and lulling you sweetly
into fantastic sleeps,
wherein you dream again,

at last.

 

but like Niagra Falls,
and the Grand Canyon,
and the Pyramids,
and the great,
undiscovered,
abyss of the sea,
they are treacherous
and belonging to their era,
and are best understood
through the lens
of time.

∴

 

 

---

 

---

∴

tonight,

i took a sleeping bag
and laid it out on my deck.

it’s not an old deck,
but i did such a horrid job staining it
that it looks about ready
to fall down,

and the wood has warped
just enough
to make you think
it wants to.

 

i heard that a comet had passed
a while ago
and we –
well, earth, rather –
are traveling through its debris.

so i laid down
with my back against this
splintered and rickety raft,
afloat in the land of crickets
and little frogs,
and stared at the night sky,
and waited.

 

see,
when something as big as a comet
passes us,

it leaves a wake,

that we intercept
like a jogger
plowing through
a cloud of gnats,
occupied by surprise
and the blinking of eyes.

 

i waited,
and then they came.
great, fleeting flashes,
and long,
lightning-smoke trails.

 

one.

two.

three.

 

a painter’s slash across the sky.

 

they were like
the memorable snapshots
i have
of love:

igniting
and flaring
and fading
and gone

so quickly –

quicker than i had time to respond.

 

if i had blinked,
i might have missed it all.

 

but there they were,
flash bulbs
bursting
in the atmosphere,
attesting

that a comet had been here.
it was real,
though unseen.

 

even the cosmic dust
says evidentialy so.

∴

 

 

---

 

---

∴

how should i come to know you now?

after chasms
have been rent between us
and bridges have strained across the gap
like too short children
stretching for the cookie jar
until it,
or they,
come crashing down,

what facility can render us met?

 

it suspect it’s sight.

 

for sight indicates firstly,
that we desire to look
in the direction
of the other,

and secondly,
that we exert to see,
without alteration,
correction,
or coercion,
across all that great distance
and meet again,

at last.

∴

 

---

---

 

∴

a sincere regret

without an apology

is sort of like

an oarless dinghy

floating in paradise.

 

you bob around

in bounty

but never quite make it

to shore.

∴

 

 

---

 

---

∴

it amazes me, sometimes –

when i inhale
broadly enough
to hurt
the low, insides of my ribs,

like one who has clearly had too much
thanksgiving dinner,
and still went back for pie,

and the painful intake
of air
and rush of oxygen to the brain
shocks me
into observing
the real life
that in fact,
always
exists around me –

when i realize
how magnificent a thing
like “family” is.

 

how do so many
different
and opposing
faces
and forces
stem from similar sources?

like magnets,
repelling and bonding
again and again,
riding the same
wild and tame beast
that is our family name.

 

that journey –
precariously traveled
on the backs of our elders,
leaving soul-crumb trails for the young –
though riddled with clumsy footing
and proud swagger,
is my greatest comfort now,

and i am glad
to share the joyful and the sad
with you,
who love me still.

∴

 

 

---

 

---

∴

maybe one day,
through some magical time machine
or quantum object projectifier
we’ll be able to see the outcomes
of a myriad of life choices
and be able to choose
the one that suits us best.

maybe we have a strong enough character
to be trusted with such a task.

 

maybe.

 

but i’m pretty sure
that if given all my options again,
and the options i’ll be given to come,
i may stay the course.

 

it’s quite hard,
this road,
and not very glamorous,
in it’s daily grind,
replete with obligatory
kid-fights
and time shortages;

and the man with enough money
is a saint;
who has none,
and everything else.

 

but we are not saints.

nor sometimes even tolerable humans,
but occasionally we rise to the heroic
when we face the morning
with cheer.

and if kindness arrives in our discourse,
with perhaps a touch
for no reason at all
other than to say,

‘you’re worth touching’

or

‘i am – still – on your side,’

the day becomes a decade
of a choice
we continue to make.

for good.

∴

 

 

---