this world is fast
yet forever
love is strong
but complex
poetry should be short--
we don't have an eternity to read your thoughts
keep it simple,
just simple

I thought I would be different today
I expected midnight this morning would have wrought a change
In me like Cinderella's coach that turned into a wrinkled pumpkin
Leaving her to walk home from the ball.

But that didn't happen.

Midnight struck this morning and the gentle heart and
Glowing soul who lies beside me through every lonely night
Reached back, pulled my face close to hers and said,
"Happy birthday, I love you".
Then she kissed me and I was young all over again.

A dysfunctional suburban family just after Rance has lost the man who was his father. After 10 yrs of depression following tragic loss of wife; he had in effect, become the
Man upstairs that Rance had cared for and enabled since he was 15.
   Now he was going to los Angeles
He's 25 ,an aspiring writer and armed with a nice , newly aquired self contained R.v his dog stormy and a thirst for the knowledge that a 6 week drive from east Tennessee will bring .
Rance , Stormy and their best friend Macy go for a mid-week 3 day wilderness trip to work out the bugs.
              -----------  ---- ------------

All too soon it was friday morning; approaching noon, as we sat there at our campsite. Neither of us having uttered more than twenty words since we.had finished breakfast.
  Neither of us; including my dog Stormy, was ready to re-enter that door we had exited two days earlier, but -due to the fact that nothing lasts forever-' the red light had turned to green , the second hand had once again started its ominous tick, tick, ticking and nobody can continue to sit at the stoplights forever ; avoiding the inevitable move ,whether forward , right or left into the flow of traffic.
Sooner or later someone or something will push up behind to honk the horn or gun the motor. Then the only thing to do is move or throw up a finger.  Though; at that point--with finger or no finger thrown to the approaching fates, the moment is lost-'the future looms as that clock unrelentingly shuffled on its inevitable grind.
     So we reluctantly packed up; taking us one -- long, slow, -- last look around ,as if we could actually see what it was that we were leaving behind. Then slowly and solemnly we made our way back through that door.  TICK TOCK-'TICK--TOCK -- TICK.......!

When Rance drops Macy off back in town he asks Rance to come out that evening to a birthday party his band is playing." come on man. You know everyone and its Beckys party so you need to get out." when Rance arrives at the house he sees dozens of cars and lots of people he hasn't seen for awhile. Then he finds out its actually his going away party. ........NEXT MORNING....
        -----------------------   ---------------------------------  -------------------
    As for how my going away party went. It was a good one as far as I remember ;   (never having had one before) anyway,everyone said it was.
    There is a tendency to think that you don't matter. That your life is just that; your life, but  then a wake- up call comes ringing, bringing life back into  the limp sails , the floundering vessel that is you.
   Rejuvenation is a very miraculous thing because it takes total exhaustion as a precursor to its acceptance. Unfortunately for those who do not receive the breath of life ,the hearty breeze ,the resuscitation- death is so often the results.   This is why depression and death so often walk together; hand in hand, across the lonely ,forlorn desert of humanity, as  if--somehow -- the afflicted were walking through a parallel universe , unable to interact with the entities that surrounds them. Ghosts and illusions are all they see ;for alone is alone , a choice not chosen but one forced upon --the unwilling, the unwielding-- the sacricial cannibal ; unwittingly eating themselves up until nothing is left unconsumed but the memory of someone that --they thought --they used to be.
   In a way ; that was almost who I had become, before I ---almost by accident --came to my own going away party.

I've heard people speak of those impenetrable moments of time,when a brief span of eternity is suspended, forever frozen , in those annals of our minds that we call memories. Like a leaf caught in the ancient mud and then crushed by the weight of millions of sunsets and sunrises, artifacts of  a bygone day, where it had hung -suspended - in a tree that no longer exists .  No  hint of its toil and struggle is left , except for that-now fossilized-leaf which eventually surfaces-to be viewed and marveled at -from time to time.
  "I will never forget where I was when Kennedy was killed " they mourn.
   "I will never forget how I felt when I saw MAN walk on the moon. " They marvel
    "I will never forget the moment I first lay eyes on my newborn baby" They beam
    And I will never forget that frozen image, that mortal wound or that crushing weight of fear - I felt weighing down on me like that leaf must have felt-as I watched Macys image recede in the rear -view mirror. He stood there in the middle of the street-a stoic image-with arm raised in good bye, a silent salute as he slowly  diminished in the distance -becoming just a tiny dot before disappearing completely - to be replaced by the sudden appearance of a lone rider on a motorcycle - impatiently waiting to go  -  who then rolled out of that mirrors eye to fly past me in a rush of speed and roar of engine as he hurled himself into that same future, that I was no longer in such a hurry...
.....to be absorbed by.

Rance is eating in a restaurant when he sees a girl ,obviously hitchhiking, get out of the car, carrying a guitar case and then coming to the restaurant. As he's leaving he tells the waitress to buy her  a hamburger because all she asked for was water . Then he goes out to his van
            ---------      ++ -------- ++     ----------    
The guy with the large helium balloon floating over his head was saying something as he closed the distance between us on this crowded bustling Street. The people, for some reason, kept raising their faces to stare at me with lonely ,beseeching  eyes as they scurried by ,then instantly dropping their gaze back to the ground as they quickly continued on.
    " State of my..... state of my ....state of my head....".said the balloon man as he drew near me and I couldn't help wondering why the words weren't appearing in the balloon that bounded along ,dancing chaotically, in lock-step to the dance-like movement of his pace "state of my head ."  
    Unlike the other people who passed by, he never looked at me -in fact- he didn't seem to notice anything except the zone right in front of his next step .  
       "You're legs on fire!"
     "I could still hear the echo of his chant as it, and him, bebopped into the obscurity of the distance, suddenly becoming aware of the barren and empty street , and the fire that was burning my right thigh.
    "Your leg's on fire"  now these words did appear in symbolic cartoon measure across the face of the balloon. "Hey!"I  cried out and then heard the echo of the words as they came sailing back.
   "Hey!"
    "Finally waking up I see" continued the echo as it became a soft laughter-filled sound to my ears.
     Slowly I was  becoming aware that my vision was filling in with the world outside the windshield of my van. The last stanza of Shinedowns state of my head was just fading from the radio as.....
    "Thanks for the burger"
My leg WAS on fire. Okay , it wasnt really,but it was burning above the knee of my right leg from the sunlight streaming through the windshield.      
  I was busy patting out the fire and rubbing the sleep from my eyes when I heard the voice again "Hello?"
     Now though, it was a real voice ,as it came sailing through the window of my van. A female voice.
     A bit slow maybe, but I was finally beginning to catch up, so I knew before I even looked, that it was the girl with the guitar case.
    It was. As I peered over the door frame I saw that she was sitting three feet from the van, on a patch of grass and leaning back against the big oak that grew at the edge of the parking lot and had provided a nice shade for storm ....okay and for my nap.        
     Surely the crooked -and haltingly, embarrassment driven - smile that I managed to conjure up ,as I looked out the window and down at her, was totally inadequate.  I was attempting to move past it , so with great confidence ,and sua da vi I heard my words as I said.
   "Huh? "  oh god !My brain said to my inner voice "really smooth" --- my inner voice took the fifth.  
     "That's a heck of a watch dog you've  got " she said.  Somehow breaking the ice  and allowing me space and time to regroup. " He told me he was there , aware and in charge as I approached your window,but he did it by just raising his eyes and the slightest rumbling growl. It was obvious he was serious but he was so cool about it"      
   I reached ,almost ,unconsciously, to stroke Storms muzzle and the furrow between his ears. "Yeah, " I said " He's got style alright." as more than a bit of pride tinged my words.
    Her laughter was sudden and as free as a wild bird being released from the confines of a cage as it rose up into the air.It was one of those beautiful,,natural
voices of those rare people who are not embarrassed by their own spontaneity.
   "Style " she managed to exclaim among the peals of joy " I love that"
     " Hi" I told her " I'm Rance and my stylin friend is Stormy"
      Her movements were quick, agile and graceful as she bounded to her feet , quickly wiping any perceived dust from her right palm across the hip area of her jeans before reaching out to shake hands.  "I'm Penelope Woods , but everyone back home just called me Piney"
     Now it was my time to laugh. A slight chuckle accompanied my hand as  I reached out to collect hers . " Piney Woods ...now that funny. "
    " Why ,thank you kind sir " she exclaimed with the exaggerated imitation of southern gentellity " I've always thought so"  then that freebird laughter , again came rising up ,to float over and then slide all the way down into the hollow,unused places of my heart . Settling there as though it were home......Maybe it was.