The crisp cool mornings and the sailors take warning skies, the birds and trees I greet each day as I fly across the old farmlands and the river, mist sometimes, always colors, yellows and greens of late summer with asters purple against the goldenrod and soy, herons gathered like introverts at a party, hoping for fish.
When you blow your dandelions, and your milkweed seeds do you ever wish just for the universe to suddenly be magic? To have rainbows appear as promises? When you beg, you plead, you curse, you thank, you wonder, you strive, a wish seems like a silken seed floating.
The fog along the river lays heavy sometimes and the darkness lingers or the light shines so brightly it’s all shadows and squinting eyes. Here is where wishes fall leaden. Haven’t wishes brought me right here? Where I am. Like a trout flopping on a riverbank.
Do you know how quadriplegics sometimes need the machine to breathe for them, hesitating as their lungs fill with air so they can expel their thoughts, or how Steven Hawkins had to prepare all his thoughts, in advance so that he could communicate, later, when he was done putting in one letter at a time? Or the interminable time it takes someone to stutter, until they sing? This moment is just so, the space between breathing, the space between typing and speaking, the place where the name that tune notes are playing but the strangled voice hasn’t released.
In case you haven’t guessed it yet, the tune you are about to hear is a ballad sung by a troubadour on an archaic contraption, a mournful note, a mouth that smells of whisky,
there was an earthquake here, one that dumped a town into the sea, the ruins lay beneath the salty depths, a ship against the rocks, a raft torn to logs and sisal, a tsunami
there was a flood here, the river flowed backwards, tore and twisted the iron and steal, a house became a boat as it set off on its tragic adventure, cheerfully waving goodbye as if houses can. But boats do.
a face at the porthole furiously banging to get out.
or is it in?
either way
I park my car and go in.
Living a Life 