That Old Drug Checklist? Completed. No Shame. So get over it.

(It's rather colloquial, however, revealings as well. This is what I said to a boy from driver's ed who wanted to be my boyfriend... So I tried to scare him off. Hahaha. **Rationale a la 15-year-old):

Maple: It's not exactly something I talk about, ever, because it just demonstrates my insanity. But, I want to try everything. Every substance, every drug.

Justin: Um, why?

Maple: Why not?

Justin: Well, cause it’s bad.

Maple: If you believe in good or bad, right or wrong. I don't know what I believe except that we're all robots of each other and nothing matters anyways.

Justin: Hmm, that’s a different way of thinking about it. I think that curiosity isn't bad, just be careful. . .

Maple: I don't know if I am, but, meh. Is there really any good reason to do anything?

Justin: Umm, no, not really. It’s what you feel, not what others feel. Well. . . just be careful.

Maple: Safety is a conspiracy.

Justin: Why do you say that?

Maple: Think about it. You can insure everything you own, walk on the right side of the road and follow strong Christian morals that give the illusion of safety, as if you’ll go to heaven if you’re good and hell if you’re bad. But, with one fire, one plane crash. . . well it's all gone. The entirety of you. And who even knows if there is that insured heaven anyways?

Justin: Hmm, you know I think that the way you think is very interesting and mostly true, I mean, nothing is ever completely safe. You can't always be careful, but I also think that you should use this and try to live life to its fullest.

Maple: Thank you. But what is living life to it's fullest? Everyone always says that, but what does it mean?

Justin: Well, like you, I know that what you’re doing is unhealthy, but your not afraid to try different things. You experience more then anyone else, cause most people play it safe in their comfort zone.

Maple: Exactly! Always judging but never trying. Society has made these things into taboos, but are they really? I know that getting addicted is a terrible idea, but everything in moderation. Why always sit on the sidelines making assumptions behind whispered hands and backs? Why not jump into the game?

Justin: Yep, that’s right. You can't sit there say that’s bad or you should do this if you haven't done it yourself. Because if you haven't, you don't know what it’s like and you’re being hypocritical.

. . .

Maple: Um. . . Says the boy who just told me not to do drugs “cause it’s bad.”

Often when I am sad I will find a maple tree.

One afternoon, when you broke my heart for the first time,
I found a maple tree which I could look at forever.
The Comfort Maple, home sweet home.

For the next ten years I found myself running to this maple.

One morning, when I had awoke at dawn, I sat under the tree.
I found an apricot - colored leaf sitting about two feet away.
I held it towards my heart, home sweet home.

When I woke up that Saturday morning, something was odd.
I saw you at the foot of my bed, in tears.
You were leaving me, oh, oh no.

I decided never to visit home again, because home reminded me of you.
I walked by everyday, shame in my heart.
Wherever you were, I wished I could go.

Thirty years later, I learned to write.

I learned to write thanks to the Comfort Maple.
I began to visit daily, writing my heart onto a leaf of paper.
Wherever you were, my heart left to find you.

When I heard the news you had passed, my old hands began to shake.
I was living without you, but now I actually had to.
I started to believe that you live on; you are a poem that breathes.

When I was young I use to sit in my windowsill,
and smell the foundry late at night.
I could hear the rumble of the coal cars,
I could feel my parents fight.

Then I'd watch the trees dancing in the breeze,
while the moon played Peekaboo.
Life was just a game
on Maple Avenue.

And there were bright Winter mornings and long Summer nights,
but I never knew what they meant.
There were sermons on making time and money,
but it never made a dent.

Amid the factories there were dreams to please,
though you wondered if they'd ever come true.
It was hard to escape
from Maple Avenue.

Yet, somewhere inside of me,
where no one had ever been.
Below the goodness,
and above the sin.

Was a spark of silence,
that no one ever heard.
And I'd close my eyes and follow it
and savor every word.

And even without asking
it told me what to do.
It told me son, you've gotta run,
from Maple Avenue.

Now some of us were sinners,
none of us were saints.
Some of us were ***** and dreamless,
but we had no complaints.

We'd trade it all for just a glimpse
of what we might turn into.
But money only traded money
on Maple Avenue.

I've tried to get it all back again,
but it's not like it was before.
You can't come back into the pack,
when the ***** don't know her pups no more.

It's not a small thing for a man to die happy,
it's not a hard thing to do.
That's just one little thing I've learned
from Maple Avenue.

High above dear Maple Street
There looms a cold iron curtain of fear
That dares to drop and let all the monsters
Unleash their dreaded promise of chaos
As in Europe despots gift a new World War
Trembling parlors hug the radio

Hallows Eve: the radio
Begins to sing throughout dear Maple Street
The Seventh Trumpet declares all out war
And that heavy iron curtain of fear
Eclipses the sun and invites chaos
In vacant hearts of men into monsters

Halloween Night: the monsters
Now dance to the tune of the radio
Raiding the stores, jumping bridges, chaos
Entombing the stretch of this blood strewn street
Parlors gorging on endless waves of fear
Riding hysteria, imminent war

O great catalyst of war
Twisting the minds of men into monsters
Diving your hands in that great pit of fear
Now throbbing with screams from the radio
No fences nor faces can save Maple Street
Now plunged in the throes of sweet sultry Chaos

And we call it Chaos
This boiling of minds all stewing with war
Once masked with humanity on this street
Now reveals good neighbors make great monsters
Skies of martians (n)or men, the radio
Hissing, twists the knobs and tunes in to fear

And when that curtain of fear
Draws, and shadeless light casts on the chaos
And the broadcast fades on the radio
And mere fiction rescinds the throne of war
What will we make of all of these monsters
Scattered about in a daze through the street

Where there are minds of fear and war,
Chaos reigns and calls to the sleeping monsters;
Tune in to Welles’s radio on Sterling’s street.

The old tree on  Maple Lane stood unwavering on the cold December night

that the young girl ended her plight

it creaked sorrowfully

as the child that once swung from its ancient limb

was buried on that evening so grim.


The old tree on Maple Lane danced to the rhythm of the wind

that glided all about, completely undisciplined

it flowered wonderfully

as the joyous winter that brought it innocence

was replaced with a warm immanence

The old tree on Maple Lane
had seen so much beauty
and so much pain

The old tree on Maple Lane
was completely beautiful and wise
Until it was slain.

Sun and traffic - day economy.
Six a.m. drive to plywood mill. Too tired
to be angry. Each day a step
toward death. What is being accomplished? The
small satisfactions
within each day. Book consciously read.
And frustrations. Package dropped, honey jar broke.

One of 175 soil types. With the fifty
tree species
comprising the canopy under which Eric and Lisa clean
      their baby's face.

Sun in winter, old apples.

Inside the school
a brilliant but rebellious history teacher
is suspended by the school board.
200 students
wearing armbands and painted teardrops
protest. Another 400
are silent.

Within each structure
human dramas and routines.
Nancy will not love
any man who cannot do as many push-ups as she.

Trees grow,
porcupine **** in snow.

No job,
no niche,
no existence.
How you earn money is who you are. You are
what you do to get food to eat
and shelter from the winter, summer heat.

Each morning I seek God
by holding still
waiting for the smoke to be black or white
coins heads or tails
wind dark or bright.

Flock of evening grosbeaks
nipping maple buds:
the sign I need.

                   --------------------------------------

Less need =
more wealth.
2/23/89. So much equipment just to sleep.
More than a bare floor.
Plumbing vs.
wash at stream, find a log in woods.
Implements of human existence
unlike the deer or bear who
nip buds, forage berries.
I cannot eat the gum out of balsam fir
or bark from a popple.

I am not Wendell Berry
with a wife, a farm, philosophy.
I like the accuracy
of counting pear thrips in maple buds.
8/bud = complete defoliation.
This insect has four wings fringed with hairs
and is minute, 2.5 millimeters.
Two species within the genus:
one with tubular abdominal segment,
the other with conical abdominal segment.
Sugar maple their preferred food.

All I need
are names.
Names and habitats.
Elements, products, decay fungi, egg masses.
Marriage, copulation, regeneration, education.
Machinery, accounting, hand tools, laboratory.
I need your names
and histories.
****** histories, books read, imaginings, unrequited loves,
      significant landscapes, broken bones, periods of boredom,
      favorite shows.

                   --------------------------------------

Immediately means
without mediation, intermediate moments
time in the middle.

Time in the middle
time in the middle.
I'm bummed I never saw a dinosaur, an ice age, a cave man,
      even missed the last world war.
Thanks to paleontology, geology, archaeology, history
mind equipped to take
time out of the middle.
It's in our DNA!

Why should she love me, her tenant?
Because I pay the rent on time.

                   --------------------------------------

Excellent. The white sun rose
and lit the frost.
Early February, late March, or in between.
Birds begin
discussing family. Sap starts to flow.
Where the borer spirals in, it comes out wet.
Birch or maple.

I watched from the window. Beautiful
but no desire to go out and touch
swelling buds of elderberry.
Is this shrub crazy? It knows what it knows
with elderberry knowledge.

Come Spring, so much to identify and name.
Insects, diseases and new flowers.
Lepidoptera, root rot, the pinks.
I think I might get married too
and watch the moons pass through the mists.

                   --------------------------------------

March rain.

Some snow remains
roads dangerous
but truck deliveries must be made.
                                                           ­ The light
pushing back the dark.
Bark
getting softer, slippery
at the cambium. Sap
simmering. Summer
and spring are here and there
although only winter birds are in the air.
Some buds
break swell
want
to turn inside out
but wait
knowing better.

I too will not break or run
early
hold hope bound by ropes of discipline, experience
time the magic moments to come
take the last sleet and pain
slap in the face
glad for predictable seasons.
                                                 We anticipate however
drought, maple defoliation, increased gypsy moth infestations
which some attribute to our existence.
That may be true.
Or it may be that the universe
has reversed its decision on us
and there's nothing we can do.
But we will do
what we can
and some things we shouldn't
because that is human.

Continuing
into the space inside me
unconnected to the light switch, plumbing
fairly independent of materials beyond
food and sound.
Where I pray
like an oak
that the light will enter me
unbroken, forever
and I will live the meanings in the wind.
                                                           ­          Basic
necessities, wood
wine
and friends. And
the names
of everything
by which we know our way.

Where do we meet
    Oh! No He_*
Getting onto
the next courses
Oh La- La "Cheri"
K>ANSAS>>City
_ Prime spot pretty

 let's >- jump ))) To Love
Please raise the horses

What a skirt steak in her
Petticoat Junction
Going to Kansas City affection
Different tribe or breed
What needs to love me
tender Elvis meet Beavis Buthead
    More  T.L.C  
computer DOC Tick Tock
IRS taking a meat beef
chunk is everybody drunk
IOS what is really the meat
Business Politician Trump

Subscribe well done
Cooked or rare spooked
Taking a Spin City kick
She got canned and licked
The prime meat hot seat

The ******* who arrives
first class steak knifes
Ms. Pork hard chew 
Mr. Beans second rate
Dark pumpernickel
Saloon *******, he
is eating
The young tender
chicken leg

High five thigh? Hands
up Robin Fly
Save the meat "let it be"
  "Let it Be" Beatles
The beat Colonel deep fried
Grade A rare meat slicing

Eating in a board meeting
The pig meat market
of pricing

Doe a deer he loves
International beer
A very sensitive time
Slaughterhouse no way out
His poker face meets
potato heads beef jerky
Surrender Weds
maple smiles picky
The rich Syrup
Disney Mickey Mouse
Kansas City Wonder
meat house

The beauty of animals
"Moms kettle she is talking
to Parrots" meat
the market for rings riot
Six enemies making
6 rounds
Six servants 666 carats
Robin smiles heartily
"Campbells Chicken" little

He's the Beef Man stew
If you only knew
He's spitting tobacco chew
She peels the potato for the
meathead bad to the
T-bone Dachshund I Bone

Garlic knots heart of the
Sausage wearing the
meat corsage Superbowl
My sweet basil good soul
Grilling your bullhead
Pirate Ribeye steak pupils
Mr. "Billygoat" Bachelorette
Hair flat crepe Suzette

Moms Korean style fuss
coleslaw what a seesaw
Playing Porgy and Bess
 Scarlet the red rare meat
Rolling stone baking pin
Mississippi one or two
Under my meaty thumb

Comes in three-4-5-6- Lucky 7
-Crazy 8 furries
Nine meat ribs-10 babies
with bibs
Hungry Man meat when!!
Country plaid tablecloth
"Kansas Men" of the cloth
The Pig approval
Kansas City Mayor
new arrival

Family together eating
Don't eat our animals
Why is life so unfair
Feeding the poor
with cans
The bad cut of meat devil
this is not the "Grade A"
This is not a ring
circus trainer Bullseye

Robin coffee animal-friendly
Two peas in a pod I pods
  I tune like Gods
Were the luckiest people to have
animals  

The Floridian with dog murals
Palm trees green thumb
plants sunshine events
The symphony dog tails
of hunts
Whats to compare her twilight
eyes hold the moment stare
Talk to the animal's hearts care

It must’ve been 1992,
And all I’d remembered was the smell of
Maple
On my fingers.

The moon’d later melt,
And all I’d remembered was the smell of
Maple
On my fingers.

The boys met the girls,
And all I’d remembered was the smell of
Maple
On my fingers.

I’d never forget, “tender,” her thigh,
And all I’d remembered was the smell of
Maple
On my fingers.

And leaves later felled their own trees,
But all I’d ever remember was the smell of
Maple
On my fingers.

*Note - Yosemite, 1992, her name was, "Elizabeth," and we always fall in love come the first attempt at, "connect," right?