Framed by the clear late afternoon sky a [grape vine] leaf glowed with what sunlight remained. Subtly waving in the rising summer air, it brushed the tip of my nose to say hello. So close, it waved in and out of blurred focus, slowly enough for me to catch a moment's glimpse of its structure of modern familiarity. Levittown from a mile above: The leaf recalled a streetscape known only to passing birds or scheming developers whose sole rules were density, profit, and feigned rural exclusion. Cul-de-sac sidewalk two-car garage extravaganza, these places simplify that which needs to remain complex.
Six thousand acres and twenty-two thousand lots breath no life. But the one leaf of one lot of one acre inhales during summer and exhales during autumn, a beautiful birth and death [unknown to he who calls himself owner] in unison with all else whose only currency is infinite cyclical life.
yellow moon glows
as purple velvet upon my
eyes closed to sleep.
sweating against the pile
of clean laundry slowly colonizing
my bed and soon to leave me
to the floor
I muster hope to dream dreams big.
tonight the sun melted into an alter
of crimson clouds within a
deep blue frame as we drove
across the birmingham bridge
and through the warm summer crosswind that
makes anyone crave swimming pools.
the tape playing in the dash had no volume
against the four open windows.
and conversation was no match for ice cream
during summer
on a sunday eve.
We were all held hostage, seated forward, and given a choice of coffee, orange juice, or mineral water.
My ass is numb from prostration.
And I would kneel if I could and kiss the earth I cannot locate, but for our position. It's beneath me, I know, as are these people who think they are alone with their loss of courage. I could hold the hand of the aging black woman dressed for Sunday to my left, and reassure her, to reassure myself, that all will end well. But hers are busy cradling her face, not quite so soft.
The air is stale.
Birds cannot fly here.
And my hands create a single strained fist to steady this heart's pace instead.
Blinding whites and beiges flank my eyes, so in time I become a clydesdale in a start-stop-start St. Patrick's Day parade, marching in file, singularly to suit, blinded to any clue.
But then we unboard.
There is not a checkpoint in sight as our jeep stumbles on.
Earlier today was earlier yesterday and the dawn before that, as these days bleed together like an overworked watercolor. There are three of us left but no words left to share that will turn our thoughts away from the void in our guts.
Eroded earth walls with the thick brush topping them was a blurred fabric stage-set to our eyes unable to adjust beyond the headlamp glare. For now, we were no longer men but part of the hard machine that had carried its rust and us this far. As for fuel, it wasn't necessary without needle in sight under these starless skies.
"Did you notice yet, the sunrise off to our left?"
In any other place but this, we would have seen this for all of its baited majesty and growing fireball hues, but this morning he noticed only that for the past two, maybe three, the sun rose to our right.
Wrapped about my finger
was not you so tightly,
but a wavy strand from your head.
As the sun would rise
and set aflame the aspen bent nodding upriver,
the Columbia began to dance
and beckon those that would call themselves surfers.
But here I would sit at this picnic table
in this gorge between St. Helens and Hood
thinking of you and your brown strands.
Woven throughout this blue fleece
I'd tug you out,
wrap you about my index
and then give you up to the wind
to also have you here.
Rain came this morning in the form of soft pats upon the skylight. The sound washed in memories of tent camping in spring where you could see your breath that thanked the morning rain drizzle for keeping the newborn mosquitoes at bay.
To feed blood to muscles having slept unsoundly over roots and rocks, we would then hike small adventures. After oatmeal and brown sugar.
Watercolor skies shrink west at that time of day when high school stadiums light up the Pennsylvanian hillsides. Fleeting, the light fights to silhouette all that stands before it, as a hidden spot would light a trophy flowering Dogwood. These nights past were nights for night games under the lights and filing out, ball in hand, to Eye of The Tiger.
The tungsten clusters were bright, just enough to make certain nothing beyond these bleachers, these goalposts, was taking place. Soft soil hugged our cleats. Dew, the sun held at bay, wet the grass to fill our nostrils with earth on nights such as these when the whole world was on the line.
With luck, smells that will never be new to me again will triumph the need for future and seed memories in those yet to come.
Unnatural white light
forces breaking to slow
to gawk
to wonder
what is now new along this highway.
Small white stars dot the immediate landscape
to aid yellow dinosaurs and orange men
to tear into earth
to construct things hard and cold
and inevitably doomed to crack and crumble.
Red break lights cease talking to my feet
and the chiaroscuro castings no longer illuminate
the green of spring budding of junk trees.
I am left to be patient;
a rare request in this Ritalin-prescribed world:
in a few hours our warm star will again make an appearance
to cast its ambient glow
and remind us we are nothing
and everything for a moment.
By sprinting with fail-safe double-knotted shoes from the two-car garage of my childhood suburban home, I would leap down the front hill, cross the street, and drop, heels first, down the steep grade behind Billy’s house. Here was the entrance to my shaded two-valleyed realm. Guarded by the likes of Cherry on the near slope and Eastern Hemlock on the far, I would proceed fretless to greet the twin creeks and their crawdaddies. No matter the frequency of the visit, I would progress with the habitual mission of exploration and would always find something undiscovered, far from earshot of expired dinner calls before the return trek home.
Decade two of life brought the focus on self and on girls. It brought college, five hours away. I became uprooted and ungrounded by seasons that existed solely to provide humidity, color, cold, or allergies, as my mind failed to fully wrap itself around all things global.
Three years early, my third decade of life brings me full-circle to that which is local. And to that which is small and also infinitely immense.
