life-nomadic - Hello Poetry

Amused I'm a poet, where's the muse? Blank white papers inspire airplanes; daydreams sail across the room through windows, to cloud shapes. White swans, dragons, loons... fly elsewhere's way in sky blue erased too .

0

Nov 26, 2013

Nov 26, 2013 at 3:40 AM UTC

Amateur

Amused I'm a poet, where's the muse? Blank white papers inspire airplanes; daydreams sail across the room through windows, to cloud shapes. White swans, dragons, loons... fly elsewhere's way in sky blue erased too .

10

. mind the eye mind the I seeing the world's reflection inside-out if lost is a place where on a map is contentment never found if money's enough full of emptiness hunger's on the menu eat the recipe make-up on a mirror shoes on defeat all that's built is broken steel as good as rust love what will will what may will lets go love's will creates spark the seed mind inspired poke a finger in the dirt and out springs light

0

Sep 7, 2013

Sep 7, 2013 at 11:28 PM UTC

planting a seed

. mind the eye mind the I seeing the world's reflection inside-out if lost is a place where on a map is contentment never found if money's enough full of emptiness hunger's on the menu eat the recipe make-up on a mirror shoes on defeat all that's built is broken steel as good as rust love what will will what may will lets go love's will creates spark the seed mind inspired poke a finger in the dirt and out springs light

25

A tomboy, naturally barefoot, gingerly walks the white painted line because the asphalt is just too burning hot. Scrubby tufts of weedy grass are welcome respites on the way, briefly cooling her steps even if they are stickery. The ***** soles of her now calloused feet were intentionally toughened just before school got out, with mincing steps across the roughest gravel she could find. Her mother accommodates her preference, leaving a pan of water outside for her to scrub her feet before going in. Even then, a black path has gradually appeared leading from the front door in the old orangish carpet. Two months of summer barefoot every day when she had the choice. Keyed roller skates clamped onto last year’s school shoes were the exception. She can flat out run anywhere. This particular expedition began like every other thing they did, which was anything to fend off boredom. She had been sitting on a cement step shaded by an open carport, just three oil-stained parking stalls for three small apartments on the tired poor side of town. There is a little more dirt on the street here, and grass is a little neglected. Just like the children, but these kids prefer that anyway. Two scruffy friends stomp on aluminum cans, brothers sporting matching buzz cuts and cut-off shorts. They are flattening them for the recycling money by the pound, so the carport smells vaguely of stale beer. Another boy attempts to shoot a wandering fly with a home-made rubber band gun; rings cut from a bicycle tube made the best ammo. “What do you want to do?” …”I don’t know, what do you want to do?” Thwack… The only requisite for friendship here is vicinity, yet it is still true. The idea of choosing friends is about as odd as the concept that one could chose where one lives... Strengths and shortcomings are completely accepted because it is just what it is. Their amazing three-story tree fort with a side look-out had been heartlessly taken down by the disgruntled property owner last week. Two months of accumulating pilfered and scrap two-by-fours, nails, and even a stack of plywood (gasp!) from area construction sites had yielded supplies for a growing fort. A gang-plank style entry had crossed the ditch to the first level. Nailed ladder steps to the second offered a little more vertigo and a prime spot to hurl acorns. Another ladder up led up to the third floor retreat, with a couch-like seating area and shoulder high walls. A breeze reached the leaves up there. The next tree over was the look-out, with nothing but ladder steps all the way up to where the view opened up out of the ravine. When the wind blew, it gave merciless lessons in facing any fear of heights. But now that was all over, discovered gone overnight. Someone says again, “What do you want to do?” …”I don’t know, what do you want to do?” “ 7-11? ” Good enough, so they head out. Distance measures time. Ten minutes is the end of the street past the cracked basketball court in the church parking lot. Fifteen minutes and the lawns end at the edge of the sub-division. Half-built homes rising from bare dirt and scattered foundations could offer treasures of construction scraps, (where she suspects the stack of plywood came from.) but they keep walking. Twenty minutes is where industry has scraped away nature, and railroad tracks form an elevated levee. But time is meaningless if there’s a wealth of it, so there’s no going further until an informal ritual is completed. Wordlessly they each dig around their pockets searching for equal amounts of pennies. Each of them carefully arrange them lined up on the rounded-surface rail, and they settle in for the wait. It could be five minutes or it could be thirty. They all understand it’s a crap-shoot of patience waiting for the next train. It’s an unspoken test; quitting too early means losing your coins to the one who stays, so that’s not an option. Heat presses down and the breezeless air smells like telephone-pole creosote. She sits in a dusty patch of shade found next to an overgrown **** She knows it tastes like licorice and breaks off a stem to chew, but doesn’t know what it is. The boys throw rocks randomly until she finally stands up to join in, tempted by the challenge of flight and distance. Then she stands in the center of the tracks, looking one way then the other, searching for the first random distant glimmer of the engine’s light at the horizon. A flash, so she places her ear to the metal Indian-style, and the imminent approach is confirmed. She calls out, “its here!” and double checks her pennies’ alignment. Heads up or tails, but always aligned so the building might be stretched tall or wide, or Lincoln’s face made broad or thin. That happened only rarely, since it could only be rolled by one wheel then bounced off. If it stuck longer, the next wheels would surely smash it into a thin, elliptical, smooth misshapen disc of shiny copper. Its only value becomes validation of a hint of delinquency, Destroying-Government-Property. Once she splurged with a quarter, which became smashed to just a gleaming silver, bent wafer discolored at the edge. Curiosity wasn’t worth 25 cents again though, so she had only one of those in her collection. The approaching engine silently builds impending size and power, so she dashes back down the rocky embankment to safety because after all, she is not a fool, tempting fate with stupid danger. She knows a couple of those fools, but she finds no thrill from that and is not impressed by them either. Suddenly the train is here, generating astounding noise and wind, occasional wheels screaming protest on their axels. She intently watches exactly where she placed her coins, hoping to see the moment they fly off the rails that are rhythmically bending under the weight rolling by. It becomes another game of patience, with such a long line of cars, and she gives up counting them at 80-ish. Then suddenly it is done and quickly the noise recedes back to heat and cicadas. The rails are hot. Diligently they search for the shiny wafers. Slowly pacing each wood beam, they could have landed in the gravel, or pressed against the rail, or even lodged straight up against the square black wood yards down the tracks. They find most of them, give up on the rest, then continue on. She has thirty cents and at last they reach the afternoon’s destination. 7-11’s parking lot becomes a genuine game of “Lava”, burning blacktop encourages leaps from cooler white lines, to painted tire stops, to grass island oasis, then three hot steps across black lava to the sidewalk, and automatic doors swoosh open to air conditioning. She rarely has enough money for a coke icey; she is here for the bottom shelf candy, a couple pennies or a nickel each. Off flavors but sweet enough. She remembered when her older brother was passing out lunchbags of candy to the neighborhood kids for free, practically littering the cul-de-sac. She had wondered where he got enough money for all that popularity, or could he have saved that much from trick-or-treat? She wondered until he got busted shoplifting at the grocery store. The security guard decreed that he was never allowed in there again, forever, and the disgrace of sitting on the curb waiting for the mortified ride home was enough to keep him from doing it again. Today she picks out a few root beer barrels, some Tootsie-rolls (the smaller ones for two cents, not the large ones that divide into cubes) a candy necklace and tiny wax coke bottles, and of course a freeze-pop. Sitting on the curb, she bites off small pieces of the freeze pop, careful not to get tooth-freeze or brain-freeze, until the last melty chunk is squeezed out the top of the thin plastic tube. “What do you want to do now?” …”I don’t know, what do you want to do?”

0

Jul 23, 2013

Jul 23, 2013 at 2:07 AM UTC

tomboy (prose)

A tomboy, naturally barefoot, gingerly walks the white painted line because the asphalt is just too burning hot. Scrubby tufts of weedy grass are welcome respites on the way, briefly cooling her steps even if they are stickery. The ***** soles of her now calloused feet were intentionally toughened just before school got out, with mincing steps across the roughest gravel she could find. Her mother accommodates her preference, leaving a pan of water outside for her to scrub her feet before going in. Even then, a black path has gradually appeared leading from the front door in the old orangish carpet. Two months of summer barefoot every day when she had the choice. Keyed roller skates clamped onto last year’s school shoes were the exception. She can flat out run anywhere. This particular expedition began like every other thing they did, which was anything to fend off boredom. She had been sitting on a cement step shaded by an open carport, just three oil-stained parking stalls for three small apartments on the tired poor side of town. There is a little more dirt on the street here, and grass is a little neglected. Just like the children, but these kids prefer that anyway. Two scruffy friends stomp on aluminum cans, brothers sporting matching buzz cuts and cut-off shorts. They are flattening them for the recycling money by the pound, so the carport smells vaguely of stale beer. Another boy attempts to shoot a wandering fly with a home-made rubber band gun; rings cut from a bicycle tube made the best ammo. “What do you want to do?” …”I don’t know, what do you want to do?” Thwack… The only requisite for friendship here is vicinity, yet it is still true. The idea of choosing friends is about as odd as the concept that one could chose where one lives... Strengths and shortcomings are completely accepted because it is just what it is. Their amazing three-story tree fort with a side look-out had been heartlessly taken down by the disgruntled property owner last week. Two months of accumulating pilfered and scrap two-by-fours, nails, and even a stack of plywood (gasp!) from area construction sites had yielded supplies for a growing fort. A gang-plank style entry had crossed the ditch to the first level. Nailed ladder steps to the second offered a little more vertigo and a prime spot to hurl acorns. Another ladder up led up to the third floor retreat, with a couch-like seating area and shoulder high walls. A breeze reached the leaves up there. The next tree over was the look-out, with nothing but ladder steps all the way up to where the view opened up out of the ravine. When the wind blew, it gave merciless lessons in facing any fear of heights. But now that was all over, discovered gone overnight. Someone says again, “What do you want to do?” …”I don’t know, what do you want to do?” “ 7-11? ” Good enough, so they head out. Distance measures time. Ten minutes is the end of the street past the cracked basketball court in the church parking lot. Fifteen minutes and the lawns end at the edge of the sub-division. Half-built homes rising from bare dirt and scattered foundations could offer treasures of construction scraps, (where she suspects the stack of plywood came from.) but they keep walking. Twenty minutes is where industry has scraped away nature, and railroad tracks form an elevated levee. But time is meaningless if there’s a wealth of it, so there’s no going further until an informal ritual is completed. Wordlessly they each dig around their pockets searching for equal amounts of pennies. Each of them carefully arrange them lined up on the rounded-surface rail, and they settle in for the wait. It could be five minutes or it could be thirty. They all understand it’s a crap-shoot of patience waiting for the next train. It’s an unspoken test; quitting too early means losing your coins to the one who stays, so that’s not an option. Heat presses down and the breezeless air smells like telephone-pole creosote. She sits in a dusty patch of shade found next to an overgrown **** She knows it tastes like licorice and breaks off a stem to chew, but doesn’t know what it is. The boys throw rocks randomly until she finally stands up to join in, tempted by the challenge of flight and distance. Then she stands in the center of the tracks, looking one way then the other, searching for the first random distant glimmer of the engine’s light at the horizon. A flash, so she places her ear to the metal Indian-style, and the imminent approach is confirmed. She calls out, “its here!” and double checks her pennies’ alignment. Heads up or tails, but always aligned so the building might be stretched tall or wide, or Lincoln’s face made broad or thin. That happened only rarely, since it could only be rolled by one wheel then bounced off. If it stuck longer, the next wheels would surely smash it into a thin, elliptical, smooth misshapen disc of shiny copper. Its only value becomes validation of a hint of delinquency, Destroying-Government-Property. Once she splurged with a quarter, which became smashed to just a gleaming silver, bent wafer discolored at the edge. Curiosity wasn’t worth 25 cents again though, so she had only one of those in her collection. The approaching engine silently builds impending size and power, so she dashes back down the rocky embankment to safety because after all, she is not a fool, tempting fate with stupid danger. She knows a couple of those fools, but she finds no thrill from that and is not impressed by them either. Suddenly the train is here, generating astounding noise and wind, occasional wheels screaming protest on their axels. She intently watches exactly where she placed her coins, hoping to see the moment they fly off the rails that are rhythmically bending under the weight rolling by. It becomes another game of patience, with such a long line of cars, and she gives up counting them at 80-ish. Then suddenly it is done and quickly the noise recedes back to heat and cicadas. The rails are hot. Diligently they search for the shiny wafers. Slowly pacing each wood beam, they could have landed in the gravel, or pressed against the rail, or even lodged straight up against the square black wood yards down the tracks. They find most of them, give up on the rest, then continue on. She has thirty cents and at last they reach the afternoon’s destination. 7-11’s parking lot becomes a genuine game of “Lava”, burning blacktop encourages leaps from cooler white lines, to painted tire stops, to grass island oasis, then three hot steps across black lava to the sidewalk, and automatic doors swoosh open to air conditioning. She rarely has enough money for a coke icey; she is here for the bottom shelf candy, a couple pennies or a nickel each. Off flavors but sweet enough. She remembered when her older brother was passing out lunchbags of candy to the neighborhood kids for free, practically littering the cul-de-sac. She had wondered where he got enough money for all that popularity, or could he have saved that much from trick-or-treat? She wondered until he got busted shoplifting at the grocery store. The security guard decreed that he was never allowed in there again, forever, and the disgrace of sitting on the curb waiting for the mortified ride home was enough to keep him from doing it again. Today she picks out a few root beer barrels, some Tootsie-rolls (the smaller ones for two cents, not the large ones that divide into cubes) a candy necklace and tiny wax coke bottles, and of course a freeze-pop. Sitting on the curb, she bites off small pieces of the freeze pop, careful not to get tooth-freeze or brain-freeze, until the last melty chunk is squeezed out the top of the thin plastic tube. “What do you want to do now?” …”I don’t know, what do you want to do?”

9

. Shopping when hungry the wallet gets empty, so first a pizzerie before the grocery, But no one warned me not to shop tipsy. At the store I'm in bliss, but at home, whaaaa? is this?

0

May 6, 2013

May 6, 2013 at 2:19 AM UTC

Just How Does One Eat An Ice Cream Bean?

. Shopping when hungry the wallet gets empty, so first a pizzerie before the grocery, But no one warned me not to shop tipsy. At the store I'm in bliss, but at home, whaaaa? is this?

9

. The World's faceless greed steals our homeland. You don't live here, yet burn the fields. Smoke chokes our lungs; ash drifts down, Land poisoned for sugar. When will Phoenix rise, Empire's grasp ebb, We can eat. Ashes reign.

0

May 6, 2013

May 6, 2013 at 2:16 AM UTC

Still, It Reigns

. The World's faceless greed steals our homeland. You don't live here, yet burn the fields. Smoke chokes our lungs; ash drifts down, Land poisoned for sugar. When will Phoenix rise, Empire's grasp ebb, We can eat. Ashes reign.

10

The water splashes my face, ears ring restless emotions flood a dream a dream of ceaseless noise chemicals ignite synapsis winding-up anger stir lonely restlessness or causing failure seeking an angry place or did the angry place stir shame am I the dreamer or a memory palms feeling the surface a hand's reflection stirred Am I difference or the surface Doer or the Deed All of it, I am the water

0

Feb 9, 2013

Feb 9, 2013 at 12:28 PM UTC

at 3 am

The water splashes my face, ears ring restless emotions flood a dream a dream of ceaseless noise chemicals ignite synapsis winding-up anger stir lonely restlessness or causing failure seeking an angry place or did the angry place stir shame am I the dreamer or a memory palms feeling the surface a hand's reflection stirred Am I difference or the surface Doer or the Deed All of it, I am the water

12

. white fox, snowy owl doze, crave cousins summer fare ice hones beauty, will .

0

Jan 31, 2013

Jan 31, 2013 at 1:36 PM UTC

haiku winter.2

. white fox, snowy owl doze, crave cousins summer fare ice hones beauty, will .

5

I don’t have faith. I just know that I belong to my Savior Jesus. I met her once when I was 11, at her humble single wide in a cramped trailer park and she made candied walnuts on a hotplate. I didn’t find out until years later that she paid for my scholarship. She had passed on by then; I wish I could have thanked her. He arrived at Juvenile Hall at 7:00 pm looking like Mrs. Santa Claus, to take me into her home for a year. I made some sarcastic teenage comment about the stupid country music on her car radio, and she tolerated it with a smile; saying ‘its not stupid, its simple.’ She showed me what a caring family looks like and didn’t kick me out for being a ******** gave me chores and a curfew to show me I belonged. When I had no family or boyfriend in my life, I lived in a maternity home until my baby would be adopted. Jesus was the stranger in the hushed hospital room holding my hand, after the medics couldn’t find the heartbeat in the ambulance, which was confirmed on the maternity floor, and I was taken to another floor so my crying wouldn’t upset the other mothers. The room was small and dark and alone, and the clock on the wall took an eternity to move two minutes, for the entire night that I was in labor, the longest night in my life. I didn’t remember someone holding my hand; I was so drugged for pain. She showed me her arms two days later, so bruised because she didn’t leave me. Jesus was the woman from Planned Parenthood on the other end of the phone, listening to me when I called the Women’s Clinic asking how I could find a doctor. ‘ I just moved here, and I work at a minimum wage job, and I lost my baby a month ago, but how do I get a post-partum exam when I don’t have a doctor, or any money, or insurance?’ I was very matter of fact about it, I mean this was my circumstance and what to do? She arranged a birth control exam because the state would pay for that, by a doctor who would give me the post-partum. She also referred me to a support group. I had been alone but she found me people who understood and could sympathize and help me accept grief. I look back on that now; there were no sign-carrying Christians or Churches arranging the adoption who helped me, she was the only one who cared.

0

Jan 29, 2013

Jan 29, 2013 at 2:36 AM UTC

Jesus held my hand

I don’t have faith. I just know that I belong to my Savior Jesus. I met her once when I was 11, at her humble single wide in a cramped trailer park and she made candied walnuts on a hotplate. I didn’t find out until years later that she paid for my scholarship. She had passed on by then; I wish I could have thanked her. He arrived at Juvenile Hall at 7:00 pm looking like Mrs. Santa Claus, to take me into her home for a year. I made some sarcastic teenage comment about the stupid country music on her car radio, and she tolerated it with a smile; saying ‘its not stupid, its simple.’ She showed me what a caring family looks like and didn’t kick me out for being a ******** gave me chores and a curfew to show me I belonged. When I had no family or boyfriend in my life, I lived in a maternity home until my baby would be adopted. Jesus was the stranger in the hushed hospital room holding my hand, after the medics couldn’t find the heartbeat in the ambulance, which was confirmed on the maternity floor, and I was taken to another floor so my crying wouldn’t upset the other mothers. The room was small and dark and alone, and the clock on the wall took an eternity to move two minutes, for the entire night that I was in labor, the longest night in my life. I didn’t remember someone holding my hand; I was so drugged for pain. She showed me her arms two days later, so bruised because she didn’t leave me. Jesus was the woman from Planned Parenthood on the other end of the phone, listening to me when I called the Women’s Clinic asking how I could find a doctor. ‘ I just moved here, and I work at a minimum wage job, and I lost my baby a month ago, but how do I get a post-partum exam when I don’t have a doctor, or any money, or insurance?’ I was very matter of fact about it, I mean this was my circumstance and what to do? She arranged a birth control exam because the state would pay for that, by a doctor who would give me the post-partum. She also referred me to a support group. I had been alone but she found me people who understood and could sympathize and help me accept grief. I look back on that now; there were no sign-carrying Christians or Churches arranging the adoption who helped me, she was the only one who cared.

5

Ethereal and Base a harmony so diametric a solid. Wisdom's forgiveness lands to the unyielding new, white spray on black lava, merging elemental minerals in salt water. Life the mediator, yearns for compromise algea harvests sunlight at the hard shore, grows into plants fish munch coral creating sand washing up, a tree's foothold creating soil... can rock become Earth any other way? Mother's beauty, an unknowable generous smile and confident grace from the sun. Ages sitting wrinkled and depleted to her waist, beauty transforms into unknowable generous laughter alighting graciously from wise eyes, like a flock of Heaven's doves so close to home stirred by her running children: daughter and son. All the while all the yearning is unrequited. For her children, Beauty is vertigo, painful reality rooted to the shore. Eyes long for the horizon, Vision Country between sky holding its breath and water measuring out patience, The heart spills out futile on the crystalline sea, but Sadness, belonging to clear water, lightly buoys lonely Ecstasy, Completes the voyage. The Vision pairs selfless love with unmet desire, opposites' harmony the firmament, but the sound breaks from tension and the echoes fade, and the senses footing gives way; vertigo with dove's wings tied shut. Descending minuscule between dissipation falling through molecules of bliss, and diffusing atoms of despair, to the last remaining positive and negative and the tension's silver thin wire between. It cuts tied wings free, slingshots the dove's soul back up, at the last second, the tension's iridescent thread tangles loosely on her foot. She hurtles back up through the scales of size: Microns, amoeba, minnows, birds, primates, people, over trees, looking down at cities, mountains, yet higher borderless nations, green and sand continents, and again all the crystalline blue seas. The silver filament draws taut, holds the dove's ascent, wings slowing in awe as she views Mother Gaea her intensely brilliant sphere accompanied by vivid tiny stars. in a cold cold soundless night... Grandmother teaching her children to fly; Beauty's yearning realized complete.

0

Jan 22, 2013

Jan 22, 2013 at 8:52 PM UTC

Gaea

Ethereal and Base a harmony so diametric a solid. Wisdom's forgiveness lands to the unyielding new, white spray on black lava, merging elemental minerals in salt water. Life the mediator, yearns for compromise algea harvests sunlight at the hard shore, grows into plants fish munch coral creating sand washing up, a tree's foothold creating soil... can rock become Earth any other way? Mother's beauty, an unknowable generous smile and confident grace from the sun. Ages sitting wrinkled and depleted to her waist, beauty transforms into unknowable generous laughter alighting graciously from wise eyes, like a flock of Heaven's doves so close to home stirred by her running children: daughter and son. All the while all the yearning is unrequited. For her children, Beauty is vertigo, painful reality rooted to the shore. Eyes long for the horizon, Vision Country between sky holding its breath and water measuring out patience, The heart spills out futile on the crystalline sea, but Sadness, belonging to clear water, lightly buoys lonely Ecstasy, Completes the voyage. The Vision pairs selfless love with unmet desire, opposites' harmony the firmament, but the sound breaks from tension and the echoes fade, and the senses footing gives way; vertigo with dove's wings tied shut. Descending minuscule between dissipation falling through molecules of bliss, and diffusing atoms of despair, to the last remaining positive and negative and the tension's silver thin wire between. It cuts tied wings free, slingshots the dove's soul back up, at the last second, the tension's iridescent thread tangles loosely on her foot. She hurtles back up through the scales of size: Microns, amoeba, minnows, birds, primates, people, over trees, looking down at cities, mountains, yet higher borderless nations, green and sand continents, and again all the crystalline blue seas. The silver filament draws taut, holds the dove's ascent, wings slowing in awe as she views Mother Gaea her intensely brilliant sphere accompanied by vivid tiny stars. in a cold cold soundless night... Grandmother teaching her children to fly; Beauty's yearning realized complete.

49

my bed became a sanctuary of nothingness. But I fear emptiness. Its close. A paralysis of indecision permeates like frigid winter through drafty walls. I decide to sleep in. Occasionally turning to see the clock- minutes, hours pile up like ***** dishes. During broad daylight, the distant noise of a cessna impedes into my room, defining a vast separation. One, maybe two people up there have an interesting life, an important destination. Listening to their flight gives me something to do. When they are gone, I have nothing left but a fingerprint stained glass of water. By late afternoon, the lost day vaguely disturbs like seeing one shoe on a highway. Either painful or a waste, nothing good about it. Finally light dims. A broken clock is right twice in a day, but since I'm the one who stopped, the clock catches up with my uselessness in bed. The period on the sentence that I have, truly, accomplished nothing. Darkness justifies my nap. A relief as I can finally end the day with some sleep. I dream of being infinite, traversing the universe a narrow beam of light. You pass me by a little faster, but turn around so we can create time together, to become here. I dream of when we camped by a river's waterfall. Half awake my eyes can see the tent filled with soft green light. No light source but bright enough to see by, everything in the tent and you sleeping peacefully. Logic corrects me, says it a New Moon and I shouldn't be able to see anything. My eyes agree and slowly darken, blind to the color of love's aura that I can still feel. I wake. Pour one bowl of cereal instead of two, remembering when you looked up from breakfast and said, "let’s ride our bikes across the country," just like that. And just like that we did, halfway anyway. 1500 miles was just the beginning. I love the places you take me. I call you up. "Let's not call them dealbreakers, ok?"

0

Jan 18, 2013

Jan 18, 2013 at 8:52 PM UTC

When I left, When You Left,

my bed became a sanctuary of nothingness. But I fear emptiness. Its close. A paralysis of indecision permeates like frigid winter through drafty walls. I decide to sleep in. Occasionally turning to see the clock- minutes, hours pile up like ***** dishes. During broad daylight, the distant noise of a cessna impedes into my room, defining a vast separation. One, maybe two people up there have an interesting life, an important destination. Listening to their flight gives me something to do. When they are gone, I have nothing left but a fingerprint stained glass of water. By late afternoon, the lost day vaguely disturbs like seeing one shoe on a highway. Either painful or a waste, nothing good about it. Finally light dims. A broken clock is right twice in a day, but since I'm the one who stopped, the clock catches up with my uselessness in bed. The period on the sentence that I have, truly, accomplished nothing. Darkness justifies my nap. A relief as I can finally end the day with some sleep. I dream of being infinite, traversing the universe a narrow beam of light. You pass me by a little faster, but turn around so we can create time together, to become here. I dream of when we camped by a river's waterfall. Half awake my eyes can see the tent filled with soft green light. No light source but bright enough to see by, everything in the tent and you sleeping peacefully. Logic corrects me, says it a New Moon and I shouldn't be able to see anything. My eyes agree and slowly darken, blind to the color of love's aura that I can still feel. I wake. Pour one bowl of cereal instead of two, remembering when you looked up from breakfast and said, "let’s ride our bikes across the country," just like that. And just like that we did, halfway anyway. 1500 miles was just the beginning. I love the places you take me. I call you up. "Let's not call them dealbreakers, ok?"

12