Ladders have begun
To disseminate my mental state,
Unpacked and re-packed
Long term storage boxes,
Dusty cardboard napkins.
Zigzagged metropolitan markets
With wicker baskets lined
With checkerboard napkins
And leftover spices
Under soiled paper napkins.
This night train is lonely
When the lights flicker just so,
I spend spare moments of memory
Re-reading the same four lines
Written on a folded square napkin.
Measuring droplets
Unfolding and shaking
Skipping puddles
This.
Right now, this here
What you know
What you figuratively hold
What wakes you
What encourages you
What pokes you
And what erodes you.
This.
This is now.
Amor fati.
Again,
I ask you for
Unending,
Unbounded,
Unbridled,
Unyielding passion.
Brackets of my heart
Have wrapped your
Traveler’s eyes
Around promises
That smell of
Wary leather soles
And unbuttons
I’m along lines of horizon
Slowly sunk into surrounding hillsides
That luminously cast shadows
Into experiences;
Dock lined shorelines,
Visited all too infrequently
At this ripe hour and season
By speedboats that churn water
In an expedited process of
Annihilating all nature’s fuel
And polluting water masses.
So I’m happy here listening
As straggling Canadian geese
Call and return into formation,
And water gently laps at
Man made structures and flush
Rock lined shorelines
Like a mother gently settling
Her young ones down
For a calm night’s rest.
Banjos played that night
As fireworks exploded
High in the night sky,
Shifting our hands between
Gaze and grope.
That’s all I remember.
Did you design the skies?
Did you place heaven floating
Amidst autumn leaves
And fleeting burning skies?
Did you button up cold birds
With warm woolly vests,
And marvelous plumage?
Did you gather piles of dead leaves
To spring board a crash landing?
Did you harvest pumpkins
Each of unique size and shape
To make my summer heart
Shift into darker hues of gold?
Well then, thank you.
I have overcome the feeling
Of a never ending journey
By never letting go
Of the forever setting sun
That unceasingly returns
At slight variations in time
To warmly remind me
I am waiting for sunset,
For the sky to enliven
With one last hurrah
In a brilliant exposé
Of memories lingering
Upon baited tongues
That stopped,
As if frozen by a single call,
To gasp, to breathe deep,
To inhale and then
Sing as a dove does in flight
And then whisper
Like ignited fire
Deep within the hearth.