Here’s my toast to toughness –
Made with one dry eye,
and an ice pick!
Fighting every fiber . . .
Struggling.
Clawing.
Scratching –
Beating . . .
First the pavement,
then myself –
all in the face of who I am,
or who I think I am,
and what I have to be.
Is this the course of least resistance,
Or the course of my desire?
I made these choices, after all.
Still do!
And every day when I wake up,
I make them all over again.
While I rub the sleep from my eyes,
while I stumble, half-asleep,
through the veil of early morning.
While I get me ready.
I’m ready now.
Ready to go out there!
There, where i’ll make me walk some more.
Where I’ll smile,
More often than I’d like, for sure,
and at people whose faces look to me
to be misshapen –
Misformed.
Malformed, not from birth I think,
but by all the pressure
their egos are placing on their brains.
I’m ready now. Ready for a fight..
Ready to run, to fight for my place in the pack.
Fighting, then.
Running with the pack,
and beating my chest!
Fighting!
Struggling.
Clawing.
Scratching –
Like we did before our brains
could call us humans.
Before we changed for the . . .
We did change, didn’t we?
I know I did. or wanted to!
I made my way, so I could be this way.
I made my choices, after all, on purpose,
With purpose. Still do!
I changed myself,
so my world could change.
And now and again I wonder . . .
Was the change mostly for change’s sake or was it
for the better?
So what remains?
Nothing but Charred remains,
Blackened embers that ask for nothing more
than to move themselves back into the earth.
These are the leavings of Great Trees!
Felled first by the farmer’s blade,
then by the wood wrenched afterthought of some more careless make of man.
Big Picture.
How did we get here?
Who decided we should be included
when the wires got wired!
When what was once the sweet sound of Nashville, old opry,
found itself a new sound in the sound of electric guitars.
We heard it, sure as shit!
But we never saw it coming!
Not even when the Evening News
sat the Woes of the World down right beside us.
They were Close then! All those Places where we weren’t.
All those people we didn’t know. Couldn’t know. They were close. Wired.
And then the guns fired...
...and we, mesmerized by the fact that it was there and we could see it, thought only that the sound must just be grannie’s bare leg making contact with the vinyl cover on the new couch.
Fascination.
When I was younger, You found a way to fascination in the Sound that rain makes when it comes tap, tap, tapping into the grooves of a tin roof.
You heard it,
Heard me, although I’m sure I never made a sound!
Can you hear me now?
Can you tell that there are other things I love now,
other ways I make me whole!
And do you know, that for all of them,
there is nothing I love with more fervor than that which put me
to sleep at night when the rain came.
When I was younger,
When you knew to come tiptoeing into my room to find me wakeful,
wondering and afraid.
But knew the rain could turn my mind and make me whole, or at least grant me respite for the brief space of night.
And I wonder? Who tapped out time for you?
Or, if you never needed such, who told you I would be there waiting in the dark for some sweet way to pass the time.
Tell me, then.
Is this Motherhood?
Innate knowledge gained when we shared the same body?
Or is it memory?
Haunted re-creation of another night, and another time, when the rains came.
When the tin roof tapped out music, and a rhythm we both hear.
Tell me, then.
Is this Motherhood?
Innate knowledge gained when we shared the same body?
Or is it memory?
Haunted re-creation of another night, and another time, when the rains came.
When the tin roof tapped out music, and a rhythm we both hear.
Barn burning.
Dry logs, creosote soaked, for protection, at least from insects,
turn into firebrands when faced with a flipped-off match.
Destruction is such a Simple thing.
The time it takes to build is slow,
but the burning of it goes up in the space of a heartbeat.
No great feat.
The difference between a memory and nostalgia
is that nostalgia gets burned in with emotions,
some of growing, some of fear,
but more of eagerness and wonderment; sense of history...
Accomplishment.
Ownership.
That, and the faces of lost fathers, uncles and brothers.
