for Richard, the boy who narrated life*

Today, leaves are falling.
“One day Aaron will watch the falling leaves.”
The first day of school arrives.  
“One day Champ’s mom will take him to school.”

Life is the story of life, says the narrator.

Life expands. The story lengthens.
The intertwined threads begin to pull apart.

Life is surface and sheen,
laughter, tears, opaque signs.
The story strains after fictive frames,
the hero’s epiphany, the villain’s inner pain,
and undreamt creatures beyond human sense.

And so myth and magic
give form to stories
that we no longer star in.  
New worlds take shape
where the story creates its own life,
an escape from "the shock of recognition."

In time the threads converge again.  
Life’s pattern breaks and needs a new plot.
The stories yield their human meaning—
maybe we were in them all along.

The story ends and life goes on.
Life ends and the story goes on.

A glimpse into more than the globe
No passing fancy a glance into the Universe

Like seeing the patchwork patterns
On one hell of an acid trip

Feeling for the first time a kaleidoscope
Of wavy sounds weaving out and in and through

Knowing but not knowing that I am  much more than ego
Finally seeing it's not me but just a part of who I am

I tell myself why or is it that I ask myself why
Just for a brief moment the Universe showed its hand

All  of those seminars and self help books
Just as bad as those Christian evangelists

Preying on the lost or ill and confused and asking for the hand out
That they are sure to find in a game of numbers translating in to cash

Like a dog with a bone a seeker of the 'what is' I twist and turn
I sometimes pretend that a new beginning waits at the end to begin again

In the beginning
crows were
as white as snow.
No.
Whiter than that.
Liquid silver.

But in these times
we see Crow as black,
though you will observe
Crow is silver in the sun
(which proves my point).

And there he is
at the very top of
that hemlock tree.

Surveys his rude world
and sees below
one whose ancestors
were here even before
tricks and tricksters.

Even before crows.

Coyote
Old Man
sly one
always ready with a joke
or a riddle

They say he spun the Milky Way
with his deceit
told the Earth's first lie

And as for riddles:
answer at your peril
or carry him
like a whispering sack
upon your back
until the end.