a hot dry place.

The desert.
Deep and dry.
Hot.
Full of air.
The smell of dry rain.
I could walk with him for a week,
And never be hit in the face by a single thing.
And on the seventh day I could turn around.
And know,
And see,
Everywhere I've just been.
Like the moments of my life had become a cactus, a red rock, a gila monster.
Day six, five, four.

Facing the desert.
Barefoot.
I should jump off mightily.
I should SCREAM!! like a wild sandlot kid.
Or I should just stand here silently.
Tilted toward... toward what?... Who knows?!
I can feel more.
I can feel more.

I am fighting against the space, just trying to embrace more of it.
I am fighting the air, just to feel the end of it.
But it never comes.
It can't.

I fall into the sky forever.
Into its space that demands nothing except the emptiness of its audience. And I think I am the audience. Alone, I am aware of this war in my heart. It beats for the sky, but it is silenced by the same. I am empty now.

It will convince you that there's nothing else.

Awakening

It’s like there was this other world.

I quickly believed each thing I saw.

As if it had always made sense,

Even the impossible.

Even the nonsensical.

All the wonderful things that occurred

(along with the terrible)

without reason,

but not without response.

The whole point was to respond.

 

Until I heard a bustling,

At first, a discomfort,,

Intense.

Out of alignment with the reality that I now see less clearly.

 

A blurry world.

A bright world.

less-blurry.

less-bright.

A clear world.

With solid edges

And some reasons for people and things.

No forced responses.

I just move through all the places

the faces.

I recognize them from a real past.

They are real real real.

The places, the faces, the object’s crisp outline.

Rigid,

Not a haze.

I have now a body, a decision.

And look! So do they!

 

And now this world has flowers!

And I can choose to live among them.

 

La-la-la.

I just woke up.

 

And realized

Dreams are nice.

But until you awaken, you have no choice but to witness them.

No energy but to fold to their promptings.

 

Now, being awake…

You witness what you will,

And must fold to nothing.

she's so.

If I chose,
I would much rather be known for my integrity.
Not whatever success meets me.
Not whatever ambition compels me.
Not whatever amount of beauty or ugliness or intelligence or stupidity that gets assigned to me.

I'd rather walk with the world knowing that I am incorruptible.
And poor.
Incorruptible and dumb and ugly.

I'd rather be honest with myself and all others.

Therein lies the real beauty.
Aye, there's the rub.
It is smartest to be sincere,
is beautiful beyond the hair,
is more successful and rich than the Dollar himself.

Yes.
Find in me this thing: sincerity.
Or else quit looking.

it doesn’t make sense, but it took a strong feeling.

Static branches hang on the trees like rain.

Have you ever seen a season in such want of a hug?

Perhaps this is why we love most joyously in the winter.

When nature abandons cosmetics, and quits loving us…

We look around in new wonder,

Not for the missing leaves just now but

something else

not some thing

but some one

we look for someone else

to love

to give thoughts to.

Can you hear it? Your favorite voice?

Apart from all the empty talking?

The world is gray and white.

and colorless.

So not what do you see.

But what do you feel?

The shift.

To make us appreciate the sun [wherever he went],

And the people. All those lovely people beneath him.

fair trade

It's surprising how many things I would trade a diamond for...

Leaves

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The shade is under my feet. It all fell out of the trees. sunny in november…

It looks like the trees were sprinkled lightly with leaves. They float there on invisible branches.

I catch one as it spins toward earth. This leaf has never yet touched the ground.

I cannot name my favorite color. It’s up to to the Tennessee trees. Which ever color they choose to be on November the 9th.

Are you amber, maroon, or green? I can’t tell. Are you gold or red? No longer in the trees, they cover man’s path instead.

the athiest today. the ______ tomorrow.

He is the worst kind of athiest.
And smarter than me, filled with expertise in things I only first hear of when he talks about them.
He lives his life behind his eyes and between his ears. Above his neck and chest and hands and feet.
And I can't reason with him. Because reason isn't important in matters like these, until you first allow yourself to feel. Once he understands the validity of what can be felt, then I will tell him the rest.
I smile at him, and he must think I'm embarrassed, but actually, I'm smiling in anticipation of triumph.
I live everywhere. In my fingertips. In the middle of my ribcage. In my mind. In my feet, in my walk. I live in my rhythm. It goes ba-da-da ba-dum-dum-dum. My life tingles and escapes from my every appendage.
And why I smile? Because I see the futility of his ideas. One day he will feel alive in his hands and he won't be able to explain it except by going beyond his mind... to the hands themselves.
One day, I'll grab his hand and tell him to do this.
I'll ask him if he can feel what I'm sending him.
He'll lie.
So I'll encourage him to quit thinking.
He might go to the hands then.
It will be the sweetest victory.
To show him he cares, and he won't be able to explain why.
Someday...

I won't just convince him of God.
Someday he will experience God.
He will feel Him. And not know what it was that was felt. And then. Then he will go looking for that feeling like his head is on fire.
And the answer is a bucket of water.

One day.
I hope.