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psalm_onethirtyoneOn Sunday nights, when my father drove his old car
home from my grandmother’s house in the dark
we half fell asleep in the backseat listening
to the hum of tires on pavement
and the minor chords of folk singers.
When we get lost, we get really lost
like a metaphor for our souls or the promises of elected officials
and it takes time to put us back where we meant to be.
Somewhere in the middle of the woods
I look up
like always
and the stars are all wrong.
No matter how much poetry I try to write
I feel dried-up and wordless, like some voiceless mermaid
opening her mouth
but nothing spills out.
On Monday nights, I lie awake wondering
You can always spread your fingers and make a compass
but if I don’t get lost with you
how am I going to get back home?
We could go deep into the ocean, deep
into the planet-wide house of things far older than anything we know
to volcanic columns covered with ghost coloured shrimp
to the electric pulse of tiny jellyfish
little lights against the black sea sky.
I could find my poetry again, deep
in some endless rift or mud-bottomed chapel
patterned with the hexagon paths
of paleodictyon.
On Tuesday nights, I put away my writing
and go with you to the square dancing dinners
where people are made of earth
and the children all grow up to be farmers.
If they get lost, they don’t say so, they just garden their lives.
Somewhere on the middle of the sea
I look up
and the stars have rearranged somehow.
I want to dive in, but I remember you
and our car rides home
and the words that are somewhere,
folded up with some winter blankets,
maybe I’ll find them in October.
And suddenly there you are,
your fingers spread wide
with a compass that points our way home.
I walk out with you on the waves.
Somewhere beneath me, those electric pulses
are reflecting our constellations.
home from my grandmother’s house in the dark
we half fell asleep in the backseat listening
to the hum of tires on pavement
and the minor chords of folk singers.
When we get lost, we get really lost
like a metaphor for our souls or the promises of elected officials
and it takes time to put us back where we meant to be.
Somewhere in the middle of the woods
I look up
like always
and the stars are all wrong.
No matter how much poetry I try to write
I feel dried-up and wordless, like some voiceless mermaid
opening her mouth
but nothing spills out.
On Monday nights, I lie awake wondering
You can always spread your fingers and make a compass
but if I don’t get lost with you
how am I going to get back home?
We could go deep into the ocean, deep
into the planet-wide house of things far older than anything we know
to volcanic columns covered with ghost coloured shrimp
to the electric pulse of tiny jellyfish
little lights against the black sea sky.
I could find my poetry again, deep
in some endless rift or mud-bottomed chapel
patterned with the hexagon paths
of paleodictyon.
On Tuesday nights, I put away my writing
and go with you to the square dancing dinners
where people are made of earth
and the children all grow up to be farmers.
If they get lost, they don’t say so, they just garden their lives.
Somewhere on the middle of the sea
I look up
and the stars have rearranged somehow.
I want to dive in, but I remember you
and our car rides home
and the words that are somewhere,
folded up with some winter blankets,
maybe I’ll find them in October.
And suddenly there you are,
your fingers spread wide
with a compass that points our way home.
I walk out with you on the waves.
Somewhere beneath me, those electric pulses
are reflecting our constellations.
