The day rolls over and eyes me, the melon
sized look of a disinterested whale…
watching me watching it and
wondering why…I think…and I take
it personal.
On this end of the new day I look at it as
it stretches and contracts
according to arbitrary rules, according to
things I can’t or won’t
control.
‘Looking’ is a funny way of saying
‘thinking’ but I do…and
shouldn’t when I mean
actually thinking
but isn’t that the way it feels
as we look inside?
Anyway, I say (and say a lot) because
anyway is the way of
saying something without saying something that
means anything
while waiting for
the right thing.
I wait for the right thing and
take it personal
when
my brain takes too long, too much
time passes and I feel the moment
fade
and evaporate.
Melancholy is a word
rarely found on the back of
a cereal box but
it should…where else is it best
experienced found seen heard
but at
breakfast, staring
at a new day.

There is a moment that sits so plainly, so quietly
available…inevitable…and it’s being aware of who, what, where
breathing waiting being looking seeing…
listening slowly as life slides quickly, silent with
so much noise that fingers hurt…and bodies
slip into restless levitation.
This moment collides with thoughts once
had, once believed to be true, once held in
warm hands, in times of crisis, inside…
inevitable and wanting
…seen through eyes of unknown
sadness, through circular reasoning.
This moment falls eloquently on simple skin, on
evaporating dreams, on the opus of our own
magnificence…on and on and on…yet we call out
waiting for a different outcome, a different
future…a different inevitability.
Our right-now feelings thoughts dreams are what they
are, waiting for change like waiting for rain like
waiting to breathe but, but, but…
unaffected by what will be, by the inevitable arc of
time ticking going ending slipping past today.

We cannot see what we don’t believe and that is
sad, inevitable or simply the way the machine
is built…the future is only inevitable in the fact that
it is not today; won’t be yesterday and somehow
we believe anyway, without proof, that it will be
tomorrow.
We are asked to feel things that we’ve never felt, things
we’ve never thought, things inside and outside
of us…sight unseen…and yet we do and without belief
that they exist, without a thought toward how that
lack of substance will…or won’t affect us.
Inevitable is the word used when no other word
fits the fact of an unknown moment waiting wanting
sliding calling simply stalling the wait toward a
future beyond this minute…and is only apparent when we
believe we have no choice…or have given that
choice to someone else.

In some ways, this life, this
time, this awareness we call living, this…
emotional breathing moving meaning ultimately
being ultimate thing is
about light.

Not the light that sits on a desk, on a
nightstand or from a tube held in shaky
hands down narrow stairs in uncomfortable darkness…
but the light that burns slowly inside, outside
and through it all.

It’s about the light that shines past crying eyes, past
pain and fear, sadness and crazy thoughts, through…
hard and fast times, cold times when touch is a memory
almost forgotten but held like a candle against the
darkness of a simple soul.

It’s about light some call love, some call god, some
call the police; it spills into madness, edges out reason
moves emotions past a line…that line never crossed…
yet looked at, admired, seen through filtered stares
and imagined…

It’s about light never seen but felt and filled, about
light indescribable, about light as a photon a wave a thought
a movement toward and through, about seeing what
is believed and never wondering why, how or
about light.

When I look inside these closed doors, behind shuttered
windows…locks and deadbolts…I see
a hand reaching toward the
light creeping in cracks, past
barriers to the outside world, the life waiting just
a few inches away, just beyond
where eyes can see, fingers feel, ears
note rising rhythms…vibrating in symphony, in
time to a beating heart…

When I look inside these locked doors I see where
I stand; not outside not free not feeling wind and
sun and fresh reality flowing water sliding
signs of dependence; good and right and
embraced…but
old fear and long held images of lost and
found and singular thinking never
seeing beyond the one, beyond the
weight of everything…

When I look inside these closed doors I see an
opening, slight and slow and simple…and
complex and involved and deep and
beyond what I knew then what I know now what
I felt and what I feel…and
know that it is not my hand that has put the key
in the lock, put the sun in the sky, the wind in the trees, the
time in the clock…

When I look inside these doors I wonder how
it happened…they are unlocked…I look not too
deeply not too closely…fear rises…it is fleeting, it is an
image floating falling leaving on wings of insecurity; fear
leaving behind locked doors and I am
grateful they are open, they are no longer
between me and you.

Holding two opposing ideas, in mind, in
hand, in time…in conflict and suspension;
inside
a surface tension letting small
spider-like impulses
scatter and slide across, to
tremble in slight winds, to…wait
between heartbeats
lifting my attention from
living today, from
thoughts of
tomorrow and
dividing, in two, what I am
could be mostly, yet
not always
will be
duality as a stopgap, as a
beginning, an
end
created from schism, from pressure, from
loss of cohesion, from
living life
duality is who I am…yet
holding those opposing ideas, those
conflicts, those
(that believe in me)
allows me to
be something else
something more
something

less…but always
someone.

Walking along; a silent road, trees marching along its side, slowly…
an inch every thousand years, gravel at my
feet, the smell of country in my nose, the low overhang
of clouds an inch above me…too far away to touch
sweet summer fading goodbye with humid sadness
To breathe, to live I think with a closed eye, with a
wry smile, with summer’s sadness on my skin.

What was before is not what is now or what
will be tomorrow but similar, similar and different and
like summer; gone on schedule, changed as everything
changes…slow fast vibrating between states and all
the same as well; good, bad, unnoticed mostly but
still deviations, still ripples in the pond…lapping against
our legs our thoughts our souls our lives

Walking with my trees I know she wants the sun, wants to feel the heat
warm skin and bones and feel…feel on toes on top of everything else, on
silly wandering thoughts, on the back of a downturned book half
in shade…half in mind as slight winds fall across exposed
dreams…to breathe, to live, to find that small
piece of stillness under a huge block of reality is
all anyone ever wants can’t have looks for.

She thinks of me I think while walking…trees agree, the sun
shines on mumbled remarks lost in simple winds saying simple things
to leaves, to branches, to echoes inside dreams and inside
the mostly missing parts of my soul, my thoughts drift
and slide settle wait for nothing more than the idea that
she is…and she is I hope always hope and think always
think that she has me inside her.

Bruised and tired, tired…she waits while life turns around, its back
to her, to what she feels, what she sees when she sees anything, she
waits with closed eyes open heart open soul and…
knows, just knows that bruises fade, that angles soften that ripples
in ponds slow small slowly drift into shadows into nothing while
everything remains above…she knows I am thinking of her of

the spot she is at inside me.

To breathe, to live…to finish walking, my trees say goodbye thank you

wave to winds coming from north of beaches of sand of towels and umbrellas
as summer’s sadness lands sails across the sky and lands
on her, on
me, on

us.

Gliding, singing the joys of night of starlight of
misty fields of darkness sitting slowly fading darkness
sliding past dreams and flickering moon shadows
past tomorrow and into a place no one ever knows.

Outstretched wings of gladness turned to sadness turned
northward on breezes across treetops across the meadows
below and above the ideas of where we are and who
we should be in that place that no one ever goes

Finally feet of clay of leather and toes stretching inside sad
shoes tied by gravity to dirt and twigs, leaves and reality
sitting below the gaze of giants of gods and under the
heavy sun so singular and…missing in a place so cold

Fretting forever watching the sky for the leaves to fall to blow
to pick a breeze and ride toward a place we can’t go to but
a place, with our wings, we could, we would; we do when we
let go and find those wings always attached just hidden and closed.

A dream would be an easy answer, an easy excuse for forgetting the
wings we wear, we use to fly to our future, to our endless
gliding, darting, side slipping quest to find the beginning of our
end, our succession, our transition from young to old.

Leaves spell it out simply and to the point in their circular
growing, flapping, flying, spinning, falling, dying, feeding, living
loop over endless loop of life and dreams inside our souls we
wish to fly, to grow, to be something in this place…something…
more than the less we always fear we are.

Gliding and singing and fluttering and
spinning and finding ourselves
past tomorrow and
into a place
no one ever knows.