Rushing to fall in love
is like rushing to fall asleep.
Young man,
this universe moves on it's own time.
Maybe it's less like shooting a deer,
and more like casting a line into the river,
thee river.
The Fox River.
The murky slow moving Fox River.
It flows through Wisconsin's heart
and my own.
I used to not be able
to differentiate it from my aorta.
That river doesn't need my permission to move.
And the paper company
run by greedy heartless men,
almost ruined it.
But it couldn't.
And the fish still swim there,
and so will I.
And sometimes I relate more
to the dam that blocks it,
the one just east of Memorial Bridge.
And on my best days,
I feel like that dam if it were to break.
Like a window,
caught wide open in a theatrical July storm.
And the outside comes inside.
And the storm passes,
the way everything does.
And I think about the beautiful women I've left.
And I don't rush to fall asleep.
I cast my line out into the Fox.
And I'm appalled at the driftwood blessings
that pass me by.
Waiting doesn't feel like waiting
if you want what you already have.