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this is how you came into my arms quickly and not yet tipped over emptied out by sorrow and a sense of smallness like that time you tilted your head to my knee held me tight still too young for words already on good terms with catastrophe we all awaken sometimes at 3am furious shouting into the dark cold with fear we hold tight to anything we can until the morning explodes into the world isn’t that why we’re here - to stake a small space, to make noise? 
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This being human is a guest house. Every day, a new arrival. - Rumi the way solitude shelters but numbs and one doesn’t exist without the other because you can’t have cake in the house without wanting to lick the frosting when you think no one is looking the way worry twists itself into a ball of bed linens slightly damp with sweat the surprise your blood moving still despite your heart being so broken  the reigning lord of curls kicked into overdrive. I’m tending the fields of myself - she of long weekends with only birdsong cat murmur brush on paper for company. I don’t know why it took me so long to remember who I was to begin with. I am god today Messiah of maybe, I don’t know , and we’ll see. It feels good to be the almighty and most high of words running like rivers to the sea. I’m in charge and I’m not going anywhere fast. I’m traveling at the speed of the five dusty books standing tall as prophets from my nightstand. amen.  I used to pull the truck over to cry under church billboards. Join us on Sunday! All those smiling cardboard faces working toward perfectly placed crowns gold-plated streets, chaise lounge of cumulus clouds. Then I recalled what I’ve always known - that we soothe our fears with fairy tale, and also, rumor has it that sisters with flame hair and a noose around the neck are stopped at the gate, which needs a fresh coat of paint. So instead, I imagine you’re in a place where the drinks are bottom shelf and the jokes - well, who doesn’t love a good dick joke? Remember how we used to ask each other then howl with laughter as if that were the joke. What’s it like in your kingdom? Angels still dragging around dirty wings? Dry cleaner permanently closed? Driving, I saw the face of a homeless woman yesterday who looked just like you. I wanted to bring her home with me, tuck her into the warmest bed in the house and feed her hash brown casserole but I was afraid she might tiptoe out in the dark of the night, my credit card information tucked in her back pocket, her arms wrapped around the blue vase grandma gave me. Or maybe I’ve confused her with you.  after Rainer Maria Rilke if drinking is bitter, change yourself to wine change yourself to fenceless fields uproot the posts bury the gates in the river sink the latches in quicksand dig deep in the soil of your life remind yourself that your hands are strong saplings partnered with solid mountain feet if these chains bite change yourself to freedom change yourself to freedom  reading until middle midnight glasses slipping into a well too deep to ever reach the dreams of Naples yellow on that old paintbrush all the most beautiful experiments in being human are ordinary so I’m keeping careful notes alongside three pressed flowers the color of raspberry ice lipstick  of Popsicle colored sunsets, pink of I wish it were different, purple of you don’t deserve this, line it with just fallen leaves pine needles, the thin pages of well-used books. Hold my hand. Yes, the sky is a dark-clouded fist above us and yes, nothing makes sense, but you are sheltered, the way the forest does.  To take what we love inside is a meditation in recklessness, a dangerous prayer. Tear past the crooked tooth and greedy tongue, slip into the capillaries, rebellious and swerving toward an endless litany of drunk driving and takeaway food. There is no caution tape here because everything is an emergency. This body, still such a stranger, is the only chapel I’ve got except my heart laid flat on paper. inspired by Lee Yong Lee’s poem From Blossoms  I have to wring out the light. The fact that this love will one day leave me empty is not enough to stop me from speaking soft words into the rough bark of trees. Weekends will still find me bent over the lighted glass sorting seeds the size of pepper grains, my hands transformed into spring grass in a long forgotten field, swaying and dipping, beholden to nothing, certainly not the face of a ticking clock. Some evenings, long after the watering and weeding have been done, I will wrap myself in silence and watch the stars above my crumbling adobe house and it will feel like the very definition of abundance.  “What you need to do, son, is to find something you really love.” The boy gave the no-fire sign, and sprinted off into the field to setup the targets one more time. That morning, he’d tied a rope to the handle and dragged the box from their back porch through the woods and into the cornfield. It had started off full, but was now reduced to just a few sharp tin cans riddled with holes. The targets were a mix of metal cans and glass bottles, collected all year in a box under the basement stairs. They both had merits. The cans made a satisfying thud and could be reused, but the bottles exploded in a glorious spray of glass, especially if the sun caught them in the right way. When he returned, his father was still sitting on the tree stump, smoke trailing from both nostrils. He didn’t hoist his gun up to his shoulder immediately, but looked to the horizon and said, “Do you know what I mean, son?” It was if no time at all had passed since he’d made that statement twenty minutes ago. He was onto something and wouldn’t let it go until he was satisfied. “Huh? I don’t know what you mean, Pop.” “I mean, life ain’t easy. You’ve had it easy, Spike, but I don’t want you to think it’s that way for everybody. You don’t want to spend your life doing things you hate, or being around people you hate. Find a good woman. Maybe not the prettiest one, or the richest one, but the nicest one and the girl who thinks you are the best boy around. You got that?” He knew he wasn’t going to get away without agreeing, so he nodded. He wished to be a little bird, flying free. It was a crisp autumn day, perfect for shooting and he was eager to get back to it, but old man didn’t budge, just took a heavy pull on the cigarette hanging from his lips and looked square into the eyes of his younger, paler doppelgänger. Smoke rose from his nostrils in lazy braided ropes and caught in his eyelashes. “Think you can hit that can from here, boy?” He nodded off in the direction of the middle bottle, upside down on a wooden post in the ground. “I can.” “Let’s see you do it then.” The boy turned to adjust his stance, sight down the barrel, and aim, but the elder grunted, jerked his head impatiently, and flicked his cigarette butt off behind him. “No, from here. Don’t move…don’t aim. Just shoot the can.”” “But, I was…” “But, nothing. When I count to three you shoot, got it?” His voice had taken on a timber timbre that Spike heard many times before and he knew better than to try his luck. The last time he’d heard it, Uncle Trix had ended up in the emergency room. “One…two…three…” The crack of the gun echoed into the afternoon. The bullet rushed off and landed somewhere in the sagging cornfield, never even approaching the target. Before the gun’s report had a chance to clear the air, Spike shrugged and began a litany of excuses regarding why the bullet hadn’t hit the mark. “That wasn’t fair. You didn’t let me aim. There ain’t no way I can hit something without…” His father cut him off sharply, grasping his arm and pulling him closer until he was half standing and half squatting. The boy had no idea what he wanted and couldn’t imagine how the day had taken such a turn. Wasn’t that always the way of it? Everything starts out sunbeams and sparkles, and then turns to shit when you blink. “It’s the same with your life, boy. You can’t hit the mark if you don’t set yourself up right and aim properly. Girls are the same way. You think. Think, I’m telling you.” Spike heard the words, they were clear enough, but he had no idea what was expected of him. Not really. Was he supposed to say something? The tone of Pop’s voice told him that this was important, but he’d be god damned if he could grasp why. He would remember this conversation years periodically over the years; the glowing afternoon, this advice which was surprisingly good considering it was the only time he ever remembered Pop trying to give him wise council. To be more accurate, it was the only time he remembered Pop possessing anything resembling wisdom. He’d also question the phrase – you’ve had it easy, Spike. He’d question that many times. Easy. Compared to what? Still crouching, the boy glanced around to see if he could spy a jar of moonshine nearby. Pop loved moonshine; his family had been making it and running it for decades. Everyone in town had seen him stumbling, swearing, and making no sense at all. Collectively, they thought it best to stay away from him on those days if at all possible. He wasn’t making much sense now, but he wasn’t drunk. He released the boy’s arm and lowered his head, fists braced against his forehead. Taking a step back, Spike straightened his jacket where it had been balled it up. He looked at his father, really looked for the first time in ages. He seemed worn out; he didn’t move, just sighed heavily. When he did raise his head, it was as if nothing had happened at all. He patted his sides for the pack of cigarettes he always carried, and removed them from his inside pocket. “What you waiting on boy? Let’s get going. Today’s your birthday. I got something special. Meet us in the barn when the sun goes down.” Glass crunched under his feet as he walked off through the field. Spike collected the cans, tossed them into the box, and began pulling it home. --- The barn had been hand-built years ago and according to Owen family lore, it had been used to birth a human baby and a calf on the same rainy night in March. It had also been used to store many things, most importantly the family still, which was well- known in neighboring counties, but had been moved some years back to an undisclosed location in response to an upcoming raid by the authorities. The barn had been used to grow marijuana so many times that it was impossible to count. Once, it had been the home of Harold, an odd job man and family friend, until it became evident that he was simultaneously involved in two undesirable activities; he was romancing the youngest male cousin, who was thirteen at the time, and skimming money from the moonshine operation. Harold Gunner was ousted and sent on his way with a black eye and a limp on his right side which would persist throughout the rest of his life, but he lived on in infamy because he had carved his name deeply in one of the upper rafters. Oodles of animals – goats, chickens, horses, and sheep - had lived in the shed, and at least two children, one of them Spike himself, had been conceived within the shelter of those four walls. Today, though, it was just the barn, and not nearly as exciting as the stories associated with it. They didn’t keep animals anymore, and hadn’t for as long as Spike could remember. For one thing, they couldn’t afford them. They were lucky not to starve themselves to death, so it didn’t make sense to add more living creatures to an already perilous situation. The boys, known collectively as the Owens brothers - Pops, Trixie, Sonny, and Bones – plus a motley assortment of friends and associates which changed frequently, depending on who was in jail or owed one of the Owens’ money, had taken to the task of fixing up the barn with far more zeal than they had ever applied to any paying job. Items were pilfered from god-knows-where and then carried out to the barn in the dark of the night. They built a table on hinges and affixed it to the south wall for euchre games. Last year, when Dody Wilson owed the brothers some money, electricity had been run out to the club and the debt was called even. This meant a radio, a refrigerator, and a dual fan/heater gadget had been liberated from their original owners and found their way to the club. Just yesterday, Trix had smuggled in a red lava lamp, still in working condition. By the time Spike had trudged through the mud and arrived at the barn, they’d had been drinking and playing cards for hours. Seems several of them may have gotten started early, judging from their condition and the truth was, some of them never really stopped. He was standing in the door, the setting sun warming his back, when the gunshot sounded.  |
Who am I?I’m a systems engineer and creative coach living in ABQ, NM. I believe that we can intentionally design our lives to align with our deepest dreams and desires. 
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