Someone

I asked him a question I shouldn’t have. 

Meant to wrap his life up nicely, made it easy, and moved along.
I asked him if it was gone.
Like a simple yes or no would help me understand.

What a thoughtless notion.
He shrugged. Crossed his fingers. And then told me a joke to make me happy.
And he showed me a song because he thinks he’s bad with words…

He let me have both headphones.

I listened alone.

“If I die young bury me in satin.
Lay me down in a bed of roses.
Sink me in the river at dawn,
Send me away with the words of  love song”

I have always found a good time out of digging up people’s hearts.
Poking around their souls in the dark.
Asking questions that have been long forgotten,

To see who they are and how they got there...

This was a simple question:

"Is it gone?"

How could that possibly lend itself to profundity?

He shrugged.

Crossed his fingers and shrugged.

And told me a joke to make me happy...

Not the usual explanation...

And here I am,

Quietly meditating on that reply.

And what I learned is that 

he is beautiful...

Peripheral Awareness

I always sit

Arms folded and legs crossed.

Eyes ahead.

With a dear friend

at my side.

 

And how I'd love

to s t r e t c h   o u t my arms

Open up

my heart

and quit pretending

that I don't notice you're there...

 

But...

Eyes forward

Legs crossed.

Paying close attention,

Not even grazing shoulders

                except lined with apology.

                I don't believe in that...apologizing for touching someone...

Eyes forward

Arms folded

Legs crossed.

Paying attention

And forcing back down all my love.

 

Prone to Loving Strangers

There are new feelings stewing in strange big cities. You have to walk alone to feel them. You have to mosie alone to feel the humor, to walk at whatever pace and wonder in your smile whether the 10,000 strangers came just for you today. Just to feign business. That, had you not been here today, they wouldn't have bothered to get up and entertain. Just look at them. You are NO ONE to them; therefore, you are anyone to them. 
There's a man on the bench next to me, reading. He could change my life; I could change his...
But only alone.
Only when I'm free to yield to every uninspired impulse. Only when I am exactly who I want to be, unpolluted, seized by this second, can I find the right bench with the right person on it, who's feeling the right feeling, and wearing the right shirt. Sometimes you need to be pastless, with no certainty of a future to find something honest.

Flipping through the faces,
The idle strangers I own,
Inventing the kind ones to be: 
Any prince-charming who might think I'm beautiful and say so spontaneously,
Any philanthropic fellow who might have been a dear friend.

As they unfold into themselves,
They ruin the holiness of my vision.
Until finally I know it all
And finally, 
We've said everything.

And I find as I say goodbye:
He was a prince.
She was a dear friend.
And i will miss them.

Last May

Dear Tennessee,

You rained a little too hard and then pretended that you never did. A bright hot day to start the week, your resolution to behave. And I forgive you. Because you are a shade of green I never saw before. You smell like pollen and flowers being born. And because you lie with me in the grass and we giggle while we look at the sky as the all-too-serious-kids race by, ambition in tow. And because you, Nashville, are accepting. Because I feel your soil affirming me, and I can feel my soul affirm you. O Nashville, you are a little sticky, but then when I see the season’s first lightening bug, I will forgive you of that, too. I wish that I could exist within your summer, but I will only dream of you and hammocks, and front porches for these next few months. Dream of feeling American and sunny and hot and green.

I am in love with you.
Until August...

The Ascent Continues

A raging cotton sea, 
A storm or a moment of war.
A photograph of battle.
In a still,,, framed moment of life.

You can see where the sword will fall,
Or where the wave will land.
And here it is in one image.
Forever held out in motion.

A cold and dreamy mountain over there.
Confronts you far off the horizon’s horizon.
Here comes the feeling of arrival. 
Approaching you. Far off and still. It’s coming.
Believe it is coming.

And then in a hole dipping down,
You are reminded that this isn’t the plain below.
This is the top of things.
And you imagine falling through the clouds.

Into the clear night.
The still, still clusters of light look like they are under water, 
Deep, deep down,
Sunk down to the floor,
Where you cannot dream of living.

While you nap above the clouds.

Here is a blanket of golden veins 
Separating two black eternities.

If you’ll ever relinquish your depth perception.
Just for a moment,
And the let the light exist up and down,
Dipping into forever...
Then you will look out the small window in your cold cabin,
And feel like the world’s tallest poet.