It is interesting to me, sometimes I think, to wonder about other lives,
times, people (you) who rely on their thinking, their motion movement toward
their ideas and endings as I rely on mine without notice, without
connection….without the ties that bind us to humanity.

I have an idea how this big thing works, this life rolling forward
outward onward and I think (think think think) about what it is, what
I see it as in my head in my eyes looking backward and I can’t believe
it is anything like what you see (or she sees, he sees….)

Memories of missteps long ago; faltering stumbles toward growing up
in a world less frequently thought of as tolerated—lived through—to
get to today…but not today…the today of yesterday; of young reflections
in a boyhood mirror filtered by the least amount of understanding.

I know that while my orbit swung ‘round the sun of youth, a universe of
beginnings revolved around a million, a billion or so others (you) all unseen
unknown and living dying eating sleeping finding losing loving hating
around me, down the street, next door, inland China…the Solomon Islands.

All these lives; all new…all now…all piled on time’s great barge—nudged,
pushed, manipulated down muddy rivers and living in squalor, in riches, in filth
or fantastic but fatalistic circles (ever tightening) arc toward death, toward
today and thoughts of tomorrow while on the way.

With the conceit of youth never let go, my movements my feelings my thoughts
exist in this bubble…I imagine…untouched unfazed unmoved by the billion (you), by
the manipulation of time, by the arc…yet I know, I should know, I want to know that
I am not alone not just a single point in that universe of beginnings.

I think (now) we spin along our individual axes in our individual orbits thinking
individual thoughts while always always always being one of the billion, one of
the all, one of one of one all connected overlapping unknown to each other until
we know each other and in my new beginning I want to know

you.

It is an elemental strain, this life I lead, this mostly quiet
moment I occupy right now…waiting for the next, waiting
for more than my share and hating all the time and
for waiting all the time and not knowing…next or
next or next or next.  I think as much as I don’t of
the smallish, kind of sort of farm-like mini-industrial
town where I grew up, where my shadow used to fall
across the path behind me, across the millions of
moments spent urging thoughts outward, spent pushing
to get gone, get done, get body and soul aligned
toward an end a finish a completion without death in
that simple silent small town where life wasn’t.  Almost
an hour from Detroit in a Midwest no-mans land I am
not there and glad and motionless in my thoughts as
it is still a vestigial appendage, that small town thinking, that
desire to hold close and talk slow and mean nothing
beyond the day the game the grades the girls the means
to an end never seen never known never lived.  I see
others through older eyes busier lives and wonder why
some leave some stay some having never been before
all know the where what how of small town moments of
feelings lost, of emotions never had saw felt…of
knowing who is on the other side of the door without
opening it to look.  Sitting here in my perspective long
removed from there, I watch from cornered eyes from
long distance and without thinking…why…I wonder
and wait for awareness that I am convinced will never
come because the small town was never in me, I was
only ever in the small town for the million minutes that
it felt…that it was.  I can’t hate the small town, can’t decide
what it is anymore except a place where my shadow
used to fall on the path
behind me…but for that I am glad sad mad and always
not there because inside of me I never was.

She stands beside still waters, watching tiny ripples unseen by most,
almost not there, just simple shadows, movement…under mirrored ceilings
of magnificence, of dreams and of time curving down from the sky, she
stands beside her life and watches as it caresses and slides past.

She is part of that parade, she knows, she thinks yes she is and wonders
where the end will be, where the music fades, where children grow, where
poetry becomes single words becomes sound becomes a letter…or two, and
she feels the slide and the caress and she smiles.

The days pass, will last, will create two where one stood, where shadow
covered flowers bloom as the sun falls across the sky, where brightness grows from
dusty corners, where motion becomes meaning and meaning becomes all
that she knows, loves…and feels burning inside…without pain, without fear…

The still waters are momentary, the shadows an illusion, the music never
fades as long as she listens, as long as she knows; the sun falling across the sky
falling with her, for her, around her is the other side of the coin as it arcs and lands
on a child’s palm-on a teenagers hand-in an adult’s pocket
the same hand, different times; the same woman, different inside

she stands by still waters
and feels time
always
as a friend.

Nothing is inevitable if we make a present that ignores the past, that predicts
movement motion going going going forward toward a tomorrow hiding
it’s eyes from the brightness, the myth of what we call life, what we think and
who we pretend to be when we pretend to be ourselves.

The arc of inevitability is never so long as to be gone, to be nowhere, to
be past us…the never…the best “had” we’ve ever had because it is us-ourselves
inside-outside and ever and ever caught in the argument of “here and now” when
we all see that the “then and was” is nothing more than the shadow of our dreams.

And it was
it was and it was
it was never so good as we wanted and
never so bad as we thought
and never exactly what
we remember….but always
always always exactly
what we got.

Inevitability as a theme; a predictable end to an unpredictable beginning, a
missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle without a box without an end without a
mission toward an ending planned and scheduled with lunch breaks and
time to see the sights, have a sandwich, have a moment to think, to look

I like inevitability as it takes out the guessing; the strain-the tension-the stain of
life living through us without us in spite of us just going going going moving
motion in the brightness in the dream with the current and on the rise, upward
and onward, toward and forward breathing living lunging ahead to death.

And it was
it was and it was
it was never so good as we wanted and
never so bad as we thought
and never exactly what
we remember….but always
always always exactly
what we got.

I live a little longer and I see that inevitability is a mask covering my fear, hiding
who I am when I am who I am without thinking or scheming or dreaming or seeming
to live in a world full of time and tempers and lost moments sitting idly by on dusty
dreams on islands of quiet…all waiting to see me fall off the earth.

And it was
it was and it was
it was never so good as we wanted and
never so bad as we thought
and never exactly what
we remember….but always
always
always
always
exactly
what we got.

It is a precious and unbearable pain, this living we do, this life of
ours so fragile and lithesome so everything so right and wrong
so here and now and so mostly nowhere and as near as ourselves.

It is a fearsome gift so strong and great and looming ever and ever
a horizon of never, a line stretched taught to the end of now but
always waiting for yesterday to slide under the edge of today.

It is a dream sprinkling small wet rainbows on blue blue oceans of
hopeful wishes and castaway thoughts left shining on sandy shores on
history’s pebbles with rounded shoulders and sad faces.

It is news that we hear when we hear what we want when we want what
we have when we are who we are…and yet it’s more and less than we hope
and dream but always always always it is us and it is us again and again.

It is all we can know and all we can be and all we can see and all we can
say but it is never the end it is never tomorrow it is never that which we
can’t truly have and hold and love and be.

The details are what makes it real, this life, this
moment…this rolling motion up and down living thing
this miniscule bit of matter floating on dark energy, on
opposing forces of nature…forever and never…now.

Have we forgiven ourselves this dream, this madness we
call movement motion living giving seeing all and seeing
nothing…revolving through life like we had a choice, like
we knew where we were going…

I’ve had this dream before, many times in fact and it’s all
about the details that get noticed, noted, documented
somewhere official, somewhere unseen, somewhere
between now and never, between you and I…

I’ve read that book before, I wrote that book, I am the
story poem prose and pretty patterns in the sand, in the
end I am who I am and without you or them and without
a life I am simply energy…floating not floating…away

Spinning but never feeling it, never knowing the thousand
of miles per hour we spin around our own personal axis
of evil, around the choices we refused to make, around
town…eyes out for the details as we parallel park our lives.

I imagine the impact of feeling falling moving motion words
of hurt and pain and think that it is daily hourly and this minute
that we have to prepare for, have to dream into being, have
to decide upon…today…now.

Details make it real but we make it happen
Feelings make it moving but
we make it happen.

We make it happen.

She walks in silence and through her past, sees
what she’s missed…feels it slip by like leaves from trees,
cold and grey the winter of her discontent…a long
echo down halls of dreams, down her own personal
history, her own life on a page.

Ballet shoes and mirrors filled her days, filled her
with dread elation nervous shaking tomorrows, misty
dreams fueled by whispered secrets…giggled
realities lost on adolescent personalities, lost
in halls of dreams.

The nightly news took center stage with her, strength and
motion of women standing at the nexus, at the table
with men, with an eye toward the wisp, the flip of knowing
wisdom, acknowledgement of equality and not
deference…acceptance of the dream.

The harsh concrete upon which college is built scraped her
elbows and knees when she fell, when she woke from
high school dreams, from those long echoes…men only really
boys; in and out up and down falling always falling and
quietly destroying the dream.

Paychecks and mortgages and sleepless simple all night thinking
why why why as a snoring human lay close by, laid down as a
signal that the dream is finished…without closure, without the
benefit of awareness that she is who she is no matter, no
reason other than because.

Now it’s noses and tissues and toys and daycare and juggling always
balls in the air always time pushing up against her dreams again and
again and again…she listens to her past like an old radio, like
another echo that forgot to fade, forgot that happiness doesn’t
happen in dreams.

She walks in silence through her past and
into her today and sees
really sees
as diplomas are handed to jelly stained fingers as
pictures are taken as
videos roll as
a fifth grader becomes a sixth grader and
the past becomes the future…
those long echoes in halls of
dreams
finally fade.

Waiting on the light to change, for the tide to
turn, for…forever to get here…I watch it all spin
past like so many corporate parade floats;
walking singing bad acting and sad expectations, and
I think…

If what I see is only what I know I can see
then what I get will be exactly what I expect
and the next sad expectation will be the worst one yet

I want to wait forever shivering at the thought
that a mistake will be in place of my dreams, that
I am nothing but everything I think I am; because
fear colors all of the landscapes I envision
I think…

If what I see is only what I know I can see
then what I get will be exactly what I expect
and the next landscape will be the worst one yet

The moment I commit to a movement forward
backward upward down is when I’ll know that
time will call up it’s favors and require payment
empty wallet or not and all my empty nightmare dreams
I think…

If what I see is only what I know I can see
then what I get will be exactly what I expect
and the next nightmare will be the worst one yet

I can wait, like I want feel need have to…or I can
stand up ignoring the advice of fate, of destiny denied
and push fight commit without sad expectation, without
colorless landscape, without nightmare; so I will
begin to think…

that what I see is only
all of everything
and what I get is
only
whatever
I
want.

On this planet
in this time
with these tools
with this mind
we are who we are
but not who we’ll be
some will go far
some have no need
some will shine brightly
others; darkness inside
some will burst forth..and
some will just hide
some feel stuck
destined to fail…but
tomorrow is
always
a different tale

Tomorrow’s tale is
of strength and fury
of dreams and sadness
of kippers and curry…
tomorrows tale is
of rich and poor
of tooth and nail
of less and more…
tomorrow’s tale is
of fate and dreams
of motion and stillness
of boredom and schemes…
tomorrow’s tale is
of tiny and large
of lifting and dropping
of timid and in charge…

Tomorrows tale is
of the things we can’t see because our shadows block out the view
of things we can’t feel because our emotions seem untrue
of moments we will ignore because our events are too much of “us”
of love will never have because we just can’t get past a loss

Tomorrows tale
is always and forever
everything just everything
that can and can’t be
but
always just always
it is written
by
you….and
it is written
by
me.

She sees things that I can’t see
feels them in ways I can’t imagine
knows the textures of thoughts
senses where the line gets crossed
and defines herself in a fashion

She wants things that no one wants
has things that no one else has
watches it all with a mindful spirit
talks where others would fear it
tries hard not to remember her past

She has strength past arms and legs
past lifting or pushing; she resists…
where others would fall down
she finds her way around
will of mind and not of fists

She is beautiful in the way the world is
an inner radiation warming outward
never trying, never minding how
always moving, always now
seeing her time here as ever onward

A lost soul found on rocky shores
on endless scenes of temptation
she walks the walk of the resolute
always…always toward her truth
and the inevitable inward revelation

She is
just that…
the inevitable
inward
revelation