A girl in need of rain

Now, there is a girl in need of rain
- dirt in her fingernails, spray in her hair,
a basement-creature in wait,
an interminable twitching of clock hands and human feet.
- watching dustmotes
as though trainspotting,
learning Italian at night
and tearing chunks off discounted loaves.

- her windows are unwashed;
tomorrows tend to be hazy, retreating humbly
into the sink-ful of coffeespoons.
- she turns a page, not quite understanding
in the flickering incandescence - the rain
speaks louder than she does, and it is a dim light indeed
which slowly blurs her into the room.

When I didn't

– because 
it was rutted gravel
danger-ish with potholes

and because Mom was
walking
watching behind
my own impatient and 
fore-going figure

and also 
there was a car
(possibly tourists, probably sane)
coming up that road
headlights putting me
the nineteen-year-old kid
on the spot – 

when I didn't,
because of all this
gravel in my shoes, 

give in and
jump-twirl
foot-to-foot jazz-handed flinging joy
across the parking lot,
something in me
cracked.

I hope it will heal with tomorrow's sunrise. 


(Gros Morne, summer 2010)

Musing

I know that writing about truth is pretentious at best. But this is heartfelt pretension, so I am compelled to share it.

There is no truth until you put it in a story
- when your life winds up
and you're wondering about the failed yo-yo (didn't
someone tangle it, behind your back?) -

There is no truth
that you didn't first encounter in your alphabet soup,
that you didn't feel in the rough brush
of closeness to your dad's face,
and hear through the dawning light of his whispers
into your baby-shell ears.

There is no truth bubbling
in the pit of your stomach
when the sun alights
on a stage, walks
before your eyes,
dazzles all the infinite humanity of your senses
and there is no truth, none
in dying for any thing.
We die again and again,
for dusty words.

There is truth
just in the upper left-hand
window of your restlessness.

There is truth in the hunger
for the breaking-down of walls,
the erection of new cathedrals.
And most of all, in the warmth of blood
when you can understand all its deep flowing purpose.
There is truth, for whatever else it may bring,
in crimson flowers
melting the snow.

There is no truth
until you dance truth into existence.

Hm

It has no theme. It has no definitive or even symbolized subject matter. As I said - first-thought, first-written. Comment and go wild.


I and O


O - a self that needs no central study
and takes its solace in wholeness and 
emptiness simultaneously
- simultaneity is a funny concept -
As I think about this,
i wonder why ‘I’ is capitalized and not You
or even ‘We’ 
especially if We are mightier 
together than apart ...?
I is upstanding, pretentious, 
reaching out, in no direction
but up 
(also down, though it doesn’t 
want anyone to know that)
[ ... ]