Little Breathers

I dedicate this song to its subjects:
The sprinkler system I set for a few weeks around the blind center-
Rationing water for the calla lilies and potted palms-
Serving the fragrant life of petunias as a part-time job.
Scent bearers, pollen producers,
The hot heart of the mulch pile and
Rings of dirt around my ankles.
The flaked and begging skin of my ears,
My favorite hat,
     black-billed, filthy beyond repentance,
All I left and that left me then,
Loves, friends, and gifts.

Existing without looking,
I said farewell to my
Fondest friend long missing to 

Chase the racing future.
I can't remember what it was like to be that old or not knowing how to stay or go forward,
Neither urgent nor newly born.

I remember the plants and little breathers,

Striving in fresh wet air-
They taught me
To lean into the sun
Midst those who would lean so beside me.

Off, and into the aiming distance
I give myself a memory.
Fully and dutifully returned,
She's everything I knew she'd be.
Fully distant, dully present,
Memorable remembered kiss removes the rust and we are a greased hinge.
Not much is right but this is.

I stand in the stabbing wind,
Fully awake,
All time and sleepless like history,
Awake and taking.
I give back to the past and love the fresh grass; the new spring where she sprung again.
The fountainhead of right and satisfaction.

they release into the stream

they release into the stream
past the pearls
past the red petal
a vessel
engulfed and muscled
low to where it's broken

a million seeds burst into bloom
quickened by blood and oxygen
evanescent fruit bubbles
being
showing
the mind a cornucopia
before thought recedes
and the tree relaxes with the fall
of dead and drying leaves

freedom is only dreaming
the skull but a cave
the eyes just lanterns waving
over roots to soil chained

Tasting sawdust traveling backwards
You're spitting into the barnyard
You're standing near the water trough
Brimming with water and swimming Spanish moss

One of the horses tangled herself
Snorting bloody wild in the barbed-wire
Bringing grandfather near
Whistling gentle low

Hands that knew the heart of horses
Reined in the day then
Hallowed the dew left from
The breath of the pasture

Though spared a cruel death on jagged sea rocks
With only a hint of a pitiful splash
I was swallowed by the water and sank for an age,
A breathless epoch, before I slipped free of the chains and stones,
To grateful lungfuls of air and a blooming, unnoticed birth
On the churning surface, below a single gull and the sun.

A day passed away there or wherever I washed to.
The moon was a only a mirror of solitude,
Stars in fusion burned aloof, and the clouds shaped themselves into nightmares.
Sharks swimming near me were compelled to hunt elsewhere,
Seeking waves more free of ghosts.

shamble forth and squint at squirrels in the yard

i consider that they might be mocking me before i hop in the car.

the speakers melted so i listen for horns and sirens

with the window that works down

driving past ed's house

the smell of cut grass is like a note from a friend that says "i'm always here"

but ed's dad comes out and scowls.

i toss out a lit cigarette a few lawns on and swerve to miss a turtle.

i can't believe our parents gave us two ton machines
when we turned sixteen

we wrapped ourselves in racing metal cages
and sped through the pines to all the trouble we could find

god didn't seem to mind
he swatted a few of us off like flies

dying on roads in smoking twisted armor
and again the pines fill the quiet

the pines and a wonderful night sky
we found it in the woods out past the town lights

the sky we loved when we were drunk
the sky we could pretend was a blanket

we were undercover with headlights
we were just pretending with flashlights

the sky we could pretend was the sea
and our eyes fishing always

catch starfish and make a sad wish
a wish to return a wish to forget

just big enough to miss
the sky

as big as love as big as our dreams
as big as our dreams as big as we'd need