I Walk at Night

-------I Walk at Night-------

The Oldsmobile lumbered 

over the edge of its driveway 

like a fat caterpillar.

Before it turned, 

back-heavy and wabbly, 

down into its hole for the night,

it stood still but shaking and stared at me,

with its yellow eyes,

like I were a hungry crow.

I slowed my step 

and put out my hands 

to show the old beast I was just a boy.

I could hear its body shiver

as it considered my gesture;

to trust.

A second, 

then satisfied,

it turned over the edge 

and safely into home.

As I walked through the dim, red smoke 

behind its passing, 

I felt like I was leaving a dream.

I walk at night 

because in darkness is a world

that I cannot see in the light.

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Fermentation

-------Fermentation-------

The Pickle is cultured by its surroundings;

its flavor being a unique expression of play 

between herbs and salt, air and water, matter and ether.

The human being who is honest

takes in from the world what is right for them

and brings to life the beauty they hold already within.

It's funny to relate our condition 

to that of plants,

but it would be silly not to.

-------

Singlepenny Nails

-------Singlepenny Nails-------

Singlepenny nails, 

a mirror cracked 

and I a wounded man.

For a long time 

I have hung my world atop cheap ideas

and hopelessly wished it would hold.

For too long 

I have looked to others to tell me who I am,

and fashioned a vanity from their observations.

For too long 

I have carried a heavy-framed, broken reflection of myself;

a reflection I have built and is not me.

I have grown up, 

sought comfort in passivity and violent places,

and known the pleasures of life.

But I am 

just now, learning 

again how to live.

I want to be, 

to know 

and see myself in all things again.

I want to make love 

with more 

than just my body.

To sow seeds 

and to grow 

like the forest does.

I want to live fully in this world 

so that I may, one day, 

die at home.

Towards this 

is my work; 

my art.

It is who I am 

and who 

I will always be.

-------

From a Winter's Tale

-------From a Winter's Tale-------

The spring comes like morning does,

quietly up from the darkness of Winter's tale,

across the sheets, into our fields 

of the clover and grasses still covered in snow.

We lay down in the dawn, shivering together.

Not from cold, 

but reacquainting with that old feeling 

of the air on our skin.

Those first few moments are like childhood;

not a fear nor worry in having enough; a kind of trust within

that starts the seeds to turn themselves

and returning songbirds song by song.

The light rises

and breaks the edge of the world,

from pieces into one,

and it all begins again.

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In Ripples on the Snow

-------In Ripples on the Snow-------

Outside it's quiet and it is still,

but the winds of last night remain 

in ripples on the snow.

Magic tugs on a parents eyes

while their kids go about playing

like it's always there.

It is safer 

to stay inside, in away 

from any chance to slip and fall upon the ice.

It is safer to hide the fear away within oneself,

and to curse the frozen world outside

without taking the chance to feel it first.

But out there, we find

in the cold and wind, and ice and snow

that there is much more to life than living safely and afraid.

Our courage is out among those rippled patterns;

a courage to face the ideas we have of what is real,

of how to feel and how to live.

To step outside of what we know 

is to invite in 

the beauty of what we don't.

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