you come into my mind
as i wonder about the state of our world
as i worry on empty stones
as i beseech the heavens for answers
there you are, pop!
with your generous, gentle hands,
your offerings like gold
in the hands of the needy,
your love as pure and smooth
as a newborn’s hands,
and i remember.
i remember that
what it will take are
the hands of people like you
to shape the world into
the place we want our children
to call their own.
Try stuffing cotton in,
then maybe you could hear me better,
because even when I SHOUT!
you turn away and talk.
I have a bag right here,
fresh from the store,
shorn from the greatest
polyester plant in China.
Perhaps if I sent you there,
where students must stand
at silent attention when the
teacher enters the room,
and crowd into one hundred
lecture-style desks lined up
like building blocks in their
echoed cave, you would listen.
But for now, let me take a
piece of polyester-cotton ball,
one for each ear, so at the very least,
I won’t have to listen to you.
how it seeps into our lives
like acid rain in the gutter of our world
and though we scrub our skin
and mop the stained pavement,
it returns, dark and thick, unblockable.
how it creeps into our lives
with chirps and whistles, childlike,
hidden between the pages of our books,
behind the minor notes of major music,
its words and melodies compiled
into a cacophonous calamity of sadness.
how it breathes its life into our lives,
slithering snakelike into the brightest moments,
reminding us of who we could be,
of what within us we have lost,
of who we are in this moment, this
undefinable, sorrowful,
searching-for-meaning moment of suffering.
it is her first invite
(i wish it was her last)
and we sit in awkward silence
exchanging knowing looks
we’re surrounded by excess fat
skimmed off meat
once set aside just for the rich that has
oozed into our barely-middle class neighborhood
in gluttonous globs it surrounds
even the youngest rosy cheeks,
tripping and slipping their every step
as they unwrap, unwrap, unravel.
by coming here today, we are guilty,
and though our portion size is smaller,
it sits at the edge of the heaped-to-ceiling plate,
torn to bits in minutes by a ferocious four-year-old.
we take our leftovers in six baggies home,
but they are not for the dog. they are for us,
our girls, to chew on all evening, to try and
fill the growling hole in our gut-wrenched stomachs.
in wild waves they come
splashing me with sticky, salty skin,
throwing me into the undercurrents
of what they think is right.
i stand on the shore facing their storm,
waiting for the moon to send the tide back,
their glistening white foam
tickling my toes with bubbles and warmth.
they push and pull and topple seashells onshore,
their distant fatherly clouds pounding down,
and they lap, lap, lap the sand at my feet,
not always waiting for my command.
in wild waves they come to my beach,
and though i try to clear the sticky salt,
it seeps in, breathes through my skin,
and together we intertwine our arms and swim.
with the words
O my brothers
O my brothers
Anthony Burgess
stings my ears with
a new kind of violence
just as the wind
stings my skin
and the sun
stings the cold away
and before i miss it
i stop, the rogue farm
on one side of my
place in this world,
the corporate conglomerate
on the other,
and snap the photos
to record the moment:
2,000 miles in
not twelve, but eleven months,
the same day i discover
i’ve walked fifty in seven days
(108,688 steps)
and though they are numbers
(just numbers?)
they represent everything
that is possible,
that i believe,
that i thinkicanithinkicanithinkican
do in this world.
you may think i have wool
that blinds me from your version
of reality. but i pulled that back
ten years ago with my degree,
so don’t think you can
blindfold me again, as you do them,
the bleating sheep who wander
in their field of frustrated naivete.
i will pull it back, this wicking wool
that hides your response in
its porous, scratchy fibers. and i
will see the truth for what it is:
without the wool, you have no cover
for your reckless requirements, just as i
have no reason to cover my knowledge
with the cries of your freshly sheared sheep.
how nice
as fall closes in
that we sit here with our dinner
(one last time?)
and listen
as the wind whistles
through our getting-taller trees
and the girls dive on and off
their matching swings
and the dry air tickles
our perfect-temp skin
and we can be, just be,
the perfect family.
caked in dirt as thick as frosting,
dripping in young-blooded sweat,
hand-carved spears cutting the air,
savage screams of hungry hunters,
sparkling laughter thrown into the wind,
they emerge from the forested fort.
not once in forty-eight hours
have iPodiPadMacBookCellPhone
inundated their young blood
(nor our old blood)
and without a single complaint,
we gather them together so
caked in sticky white clouds of s’mores,
campfire-smoke-ridden clothing and skin,
hot metal spears cutting into the ash,
thrilled screams of sugar highs,
sparkling laughter thrown into the stars,
they emerge from the perfect weekend.
one stretch of road
that all my life
living here
i’ve never seen
how it curves and dips
reveals a view
of peaks and forests
of bicyclists making
their way to their next destination
(here is where the heart is)
of log cabins
and tiny towns
hidden trails
and geocaches
campgrounds tucked in
amongst aspens
and dirt roads
and i am reminded
(do i need a reminder?)
of why i am here,
why we are here
here
here
on this curvy
dipping winding road
that takes us home.
