Poetry
Nothing to do with
Zen
This poem has nothing
to do with Richard Brautigan
After the rain fell for a year
I began to notice that the puddles were nothing new.
You told me I would begin to realize these things.
I was feeling the great ache.
Pray for us now and all the hours
until we reach a safe place.
The snow was trying to be rain
And failing against my windshield.
When we use words
to dissect our experience,
we are putting distance
between ourselves and the present.
We spent time figuring out the past --
the outcome tax calculation
the night before the filing deadline.
The annual comedy fest evolves curiously.
Fare forward. I always say that when the sun is out.
In the discipline of carelessness,
we roll in the warm mud
like babies escaped
from the picnic and laughing
in the small chaos of the now.
A gurgle and a giggle and pushing rush of all that
turned inside out like your sweater that you rushed
to pull off, the miracle of the everyday magic trick.
And when the sun goes out
like an old light bulb when you switch it and it says gone.
You nod like an old soldier in front of an old fire
in an old chair and the kitten attacks the dancing fire
flickers on the black tile before the fireplace
in a home you knew.
So many obstacles, none of them
created by anyone else. Must be elves, no
and not escaped midgets from the circus.
All my work.
It is only love. It is only joy and another roll
through the car wash for souls.
I have a coupon for two.
September Night
when the raccoon came out of the grass of the ditch on the beach road,
I found the old reflexes from my hockey youth and stole the brakes for
him, stopping two feet from his body as he speed jumped the dirt road,
the cottage was 800 yards away, the dogs not in the back seat, I didn't
feel old again for 20 minutes.
|
