our lives
our American lives
exist in movies, books
filled with flashbacks
memorabilia
from our characters’ pasts.
our lives
our American lives
exist in the here, now
filled with wanton disregard
consumption
of our planet’s future.
their lives
their American lives
exist in computers, smart phones
filled with violent imagery,
absorption
of themselves, their future.
my life
my American life
exists in words, hope
filled with cautionary love,
faith
in them, us, our future.
take me in
i’m surrounded
i give in
pink purple white balloons
pink red streamers
a Guinness cake
homemade pumpkin pie
take me in
take me in
for a day’s preparation
for a simple birthday celebration
six years old
and she wanted the beer cake
the pumpkin pie
small and special
for the actual day
take me in
because never in my childhood
did i spend a day
an entire weekend day
preparing for a party
that she’ll remember
small and simple
in her mind tomorrow
next year
the moment
she closes her eyes
for the last time
take me in
i’ll be there by her side
when she
opens her presents
welcomes her guests
plays her games
closes her eyes
and makes her wish
our wish
for that moment
that we could
all be six again.
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.
as children we wished on the first star
(i saw the last one this morning).
how would i know then
how early my legs could move,
taking me not into the sunset
but the sunrise,
the closest star of them all
hiding behind the horizon
while i wished, wished, wished
on that far-distant star
(the last star)
peeking out over peaks,
shining its light on my ride,
spinning my pedals,
spinning the world in its realm,
spinning its magic in my heart.
for my last one hundred miles
i will
pound the pavement with
every last bit of angst
that aches to pour out
with the spin of my tires
for my last one hundred miles
i will
let loose the screaming soul
within my soul
and forget for a moment
why i am here
for my last one hundred miles
i will
be the dream i dreamt of me
chase the sun into the horizon
and allow the night to
envelop my desires
for my last one hundred miles
i will
pound the pavement with a plan
that will carry me to the top of
the mountain,
to the next one hundred,
one thousand,
two thousand miles.
in windowless hell i sit
surrounded by computers.
technology seethes into my veins,
hard plastic pounds my ass.
keyboards and mice click
like the rodents they ought to be.
sighs and questions filter into
the stuffy dark room.
i am here but i am not here.
my mind, just like theirs,
wanders down the hallway,
out the door, into the open air.
i can picture the pedals,
the tires taking me home,
the summer heat seeping through me
like blood through my veins.
i can feel the bath-warm water
lapping around our naked skin,
his hands on my back in the soft
moments of a Kentucky summer.
in windowless hell i sit
surrounded by computers.
technology seethes into my veins,
gives me the keys to take me home.
the music has ended
(crickets are singing now)
and there are no cicadas here
their tiny legs call out to us
in the deep of night and the
light shining on my belly?
it is like that night under the moon
white sand encircling our toes
where i walked to the water alone
you remember. how anger and
longing threw us apart, how i
imagined a trip there alone, with them.
in a perfect circle, the moon
led me along the beach, wind
whispering the truth to me
we didn’t have electricity
a bathroom or a camper,
nothing but haste and desire
i think of this now only because
of the songs you have chosen
now ended, given in to insects
i will carry them (the music of
our lives) to sleep along with my moon.
i would be lost without it.
forty-three miles
and we have left behind the skyline
(cash register, stadium, buildings so new
i cannot recognize their sunken Saturday lights)
that i saw first at seven, then nine,
then permanently at eleven
we are surrounded by pines
and the famous aspens,
the cabin built from the ground up
with logs pasted together,
stone fireplace, wood stove,
eclectic collection of furniture
(home away from home)
we follow the girls along
the not-so-traveled path,
pine emanating its Rocky Mountain
odor into our altitude-chilled skin,
and I remember
(oh how I remember)
why Colorado is
home, home, home.
with turbulence bouncing her brain,
she rests her eyes
and recounts
(rebreathes relives)
the memory.
haunt
pleasure
remorse
renewal
and words that
can’t define it.
she traps it there
(behind the eyelids)
for no one else to see.
like a kidnapped child,
it will not submit
no matter how many
locks she places on its cage.
she searches for the keys
but
they have been lost in layers
of days and months and years
that only allow her this one
to keep
to keep without release.
surrounded by green,
i feel i’ve traveled
this path in my past,
its twists over tree roots,
the edges thick with ancient ferns,
moisture licking my legs,
it is more than a memory.
i come to a place
that has haunted (pleased)
so many dreams that my mind
has put forward just for
this moment in time.
here it offers me a crossroads,
the yellow wood from my youth
or the mountain to climb with age.
i reach for what i think must be
a native plant, plucking up
its circular leaf pattern to turn in my palm
while my mind, taken aback,
makes the choice.
as startling as my decision is,
i turn towards the mountain.
i have seen some peaks between now and then
and I am ready for the climb.
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