If you take a microscope and zoom in, you will find millions of tiny bacteria, reproducing through fission and struggling to survive. If you take a telescope and zoom out you would see the universe ever-expanding. Between those two, bacteria and the universe, there is us- humans. And we reproduce and struggle and grow. Sometimes in life you will feel small like bacteria; sometimes you will feel as big as the universe but no matter where you go or what you do make sure you are always growing. It doesn't matter where you were planted; ALWAYS GROW!

didn't sleep. instead I found
a wall in a cave & grabbed a
chipping hammer & tore it down.
finally broke thru to starlight
at 4:12 this morning.
***** bruised fingernails.
discarded piles of red clay pain
swept into outside corners.
spelunking ever inward. steve knows.
shed some tears, dave, he says.
shed your fears.
warmer in the new cave.
less damp.
room for a rug.
room enough to grow a plant.
room enough to grow.
self-perpetuating seeds.
dawn was a stranger I welcomed inside.
sleeping stalactite makes back tight.
I will wake & stretch when the sun is high
overhead like a cat in a woven basket.
mountain water trickles underground.
do yr homework.
yr body is yr home. put in work.
my body is my home. work is work.
yr body is my home. input work.

As I age,
I grow more and more convinced
That the human experience is little more,
Than a narrative of questions.
Regardless...
Of whether or not there is indeed a narrative,
Or if indeed there are any answers.

From 20,000 feet, the lines are straight.
the world is in neat patterns
with the white headlights heading in one direction
and the red tail lights, obediently traveling the other

dozens of creeks converge and streams merge
into the river whose meandering still makes sense
and the interstate crosses via white bridges in parallel lines
at a point most efficient to their final destination

From here, cities make sense too
I can spot a school by the football stadium
and the streets laid out in a grid
with an occasional flourish of gated suburbs

the earth is a patchwork
a quilt of work and technology
where dirt road meets gravel
meets asphalt meets concrete
all at ninety degree angles

mathmeticians must have had this vantage point
geometry was made for this
relationships weren't
relationships are messy and this is orderly

I think I like to fly
to make the world feel orderly and organized
for just a while
till I come down and navigate the airport
heading for home
and living with people

You've asked me why I love you
As if you couldn't believe I would love you
But how could I not love you?

I wish the traveling circus were still around to run away to. It's not about being afraid to leave as much as it is needing a place to go. But my father was a mountain and my mother was a hole. And we're caves, mouths open and full of the cold. Been sitting so long myths have been made about the things that live inside us. The children come on dares to look in there. And yell in fear, at first only to have those sounds echo back. Then they laugh. There was never anything to be afraid of. Our bodies are full of that noise. Mostly the laughter. It lasts longer. It feels better. But is easier to forget because no one ever learned anything by laughing as much as being brave. You have to be scared to be brave. And moving from this place takes the strength of an earthquake sometimes. But you should know, your hands will never be big enough to hold all the rubble when the mountain crumbles. I remember when the cancer hit. The chest x rays from when they removed the portocath. Backlit, your chest resembles a busted cemetery gate from some ghost scene in a Sherlock Holmes movie. Broken. From letting all your ghosts go. And don't focus on all the things your hands can't hold. Your head fits just fine. Your hand. Cupped over your mouth to catch all your sighs. Can hold a cup of coffee to give to someone. Flowers. A poem. Tonight. Tonight you realize you're a mountain twice removed. A marble statue. So strong and so beautiful people will come a long ways just to see you.