I used to grieve for the passing of youth,
and long for the endless procession
of yesterday’s promise,

while the soul mourned its sad song
of grievous wrongs.

the shattered landscape of twisted dreams and wasted want,the demise of desperate affection and the birth of regret–the hollow home of hate and horror.

I used to tilt my face to the moon, its lambent light lost in chemical corruption and unshed tears
. Eyes blind to the monster in my midst

I used to sleep the sleep of the dead, and awaken with deadly need, soul broken, my only consolation
the comfortable dread of the ******

I used to sleep.

And dream the dreams of hell and wish that angels really dwelt in the land of immortality…

Yet another year has passed in a blur of waste and want, resplendent in good intentions, and captive to the grievous mistakes and wonderous successes achieved in its wake, and I marvel that i am still present to witness times gentle touch get inexorably firmer as its slow breaths draw closer to my cheeks. Birthdays seem a childs delight, yet it was with barely veiled excitement that i awoke this morning, cataloguing the days tasks mentally as I devised preemptive counter measures for the growing list of demands that seemed intent on marauding the simple joy of celebrating my own existence with the people that found themselves, some to their discomfiture, in my life.
It was early this morning when the first notes of the birthday song, the song that every child knows, and every adult can sing effortlessly, erupted in my direction, and i wanted to hold time in my hand, and forbid its passing as my daughter Taylor sang to me, her soft, lilting voice taking care with each word, as if she bled her heart onto each syllable before it passed her lips, and they fell before me in a shower of soft sighs and silky, red regard. I listened, silent, as I heard her say the words, and they weresuddenly a foreign language to me, a magical language lost to common ears, that echoed with beauty unimaginable, and i stood, transfixed and defenseless against the innocent sincerity she placed on each word, as if she bent over them as they lay down to sleep, kissing each on the forehead, smiling as she went to the next.

“Happy Birthday to Daddy…….”

Since she had arrived in my life, i had taken this name, and with it, the promise to try, in the most assuredly imperfect way, to cultivate her brilliant, questing mind, and to attempt to be the example by which she would measure a man. It was an honor, that name, coming from the lips of an angel, whispering the love of God in a childs song, and i could barely hold the tears as they threatened to seek refuge at her feet, and revere her name in dripping splashes along the ground. Twice today, she sang that hymn to me, and twice i fell in love with her as her sweet little voice lifted in the refrain. “Happy Birthday to Daddy….”. She was, I thought, my sweet, beautiful little girl.  As she sang, the sun peered down upon the earth, its baleful eye softening with the rising beauty of her song, and the trees swayed with the words of her adoring communion.

I am from my grandmother,who snuck out of the house to smoke camel non-filtered

I am from the middle of nowhere, not far from town.

I am from the pine tree with a water hose tied on it, where I imagined  I was Indiana Jones.

I am from the woods, where the cicadas sang at night.

I am from the kudzu that blanketed the trees and menaced the garden.

I am from the apple trees in the front yard, whose fruit                         never turned red.

I am from the middle of nowhere, not far from town.

I am from my grandfather’s plaid pockets, where he would pull out                     suckers.

I am from my father’s mustang that i crashed into the driveway.

I am from my great-grandfather’s picture, proudly displayed on the              wooden mantle.

I am from my grandmother’s bible stories, in the back bedroom where she read every night.

I am from the middle of nowhere, not far from town.

I am from Highway 494, where the trees were leveled to build subdivisions.

I am from the soft red clay and moist brown earth of the backyard.

I am from the moonlight I could see from the top of my house late at night.

I am from the sweltering heat and uncut grass in the front yard.

I am from the middle of nowhere, not far from town.

I am from the small cemetary past the corner store, where my grandfather      lies next to my grandmother,

and my father next to her.

I am from Uptown New Orleans, where my daughter learns her A.B.C’s in the back bedroom

where she prays every night

I am from the brown bag from the Shell station that i fill with suckers, and sneak to her when her mom isn’t watching.

I am from the picture of us dancing at a music festival, her on my shoulders, displayed proudly on the wooden mantle.

I am not from from anywhere, in the middle of town

“Do you see me daddy , I’m going so high!”
I did, in fact, see her, going so high, and my hands tapped and fidgeted on my chest in a nervous display of fatherly concern as I fought the urge to rescue her from the swing that, I was sure, conspired to dump her unceremoniously onto the hard concrete beneath her.
“I do see you baby!!” I assured her, forcing a note of excitement into my voice that I was sure bordered on hysteria.
She gracefully kicked her legs, gaining momentum, and the blue sky welcomed her as she soared toward the clouds.
I watched her, the wind kissing her hair, as she smiled in the freedom of flight.

“Daddy,can you push me?” She asked gently.

My heart soared with her in the clouds as my hand touched her soft back, encouraging her escape from the confines of the wingless, flightless things held captive on the ground. I knew that she would fly alone one day, but for now, she was taking me along for the ride. My beautiful little girl.

If there is distance, make allowance for it, and patiently support the reasons for its necessity, for fear always increases the space between two people. The tenuous connection of yesterday is infinitely more intimate than the angry silence of todays mistrust, and tomorrows loss. To begin anew is to mourn that which was, and relive its exquisite pain as eyes look to the unknown for the promise of consolation

Discord stalks the communion
of fragile discourse;
the melancholy accomplice
with unthinking ears
and careless lips,
bitter silences
and impetuous
departures