I'm looking through you. Your lips perched on your faceless countenance, you explain to me everything you want me to take seriously. The wind rushes through again and again, or constantly - What have you noticed today? Then again, ask me my accomplishments. But allow me to explain to you, now, what success is.
Look at that tree over there. The one I see is next to a power pole, which goes up - progress - but leans - flaw. The tree beside comes from an angle and smoothly bends its textured bark to make way around the oak who claimed his spot long ago. About ten feet after a three degree angle the Pine shifts to straighten. Only one side has limbs, yet short ones - to make way again for the oak's high branches - or cut off for the power lines that need through. If the oak was left alone, I wouldn't see the knots on his trunk that ache from chain-saws that made way for more grass. They wanted a lawn.
And behind the taller, older pine to my 10:52 is the baby pine, only thirteen now but still six of me tall, that my family planted. Makes me think of Mom's request to be subtle when she goes. A headstone-to-know her in Pyle Prairie and ashes scattered in Cedar Creek where we spent vacations.
Someone may ask, "What does this have to do with success?"
I'll continue.
The GPS is in my car, which is at the airport from where Dad left. We swapped car & truck when I went out to New Mexico to move my grandmother's things to Dallas. After getting back I went to see Mom in the GPS-less truck. The drive out was fairly easy because it was day, but still guess work at times. The drive back had a wrong exit, missed exit, and Dad's Satellite Radio that listened me Kids in the Hall. The missed and wrong turns forced me to consider how to find the right way, which doesn't usually happen thanks to the ill-purchased GPS. An appreciated gift most definitely. But we're dwindling our critical thinking with these things - and cellphones. It's like match class! "We don't need to know this. We have calculators."
Children have instinct, except they get chastised for their realness. Shh. I'm telling you the truth. You have nothing to be worried about. Don't do that. Learn to ask questions, but not those questions. Follow my lead - forever. And as for success, forget about it. What the hell is that anyway? I spend my days contemplating trees. That's not possibly what you meant?
This spider is eyeing me. She tries to figure me out, comes up like a curious pup, scurries around the corner of the step, then comes back out to look again. It's a game of Peak-a-Boo. With a spider! I must be insane. The spider's gone. Aha! I see it. She just, well, I don't know what she wants, but her white fingers keep brushing her fangs and she can jump! And does! And she's nearing m...
Oh, She was just coming to see my bright-purple lighter. It sits on natural wood so must stand out to critters' eyes. She left.
Anyway. How do I spend my days? I laze. I gaze. I pray. I sip a joint and work my own. I duck away from the winds and scurry from their waves. I cleaned a garage and now have waste and more waste to take to the dump a ways up the way. But I write a time - line & rhyme - my mind marks the page through the feral pen in my helpless hand. But it all makes sense to me. That stands to say something.
Maybe instead I should worry myself with whether or not you get me.
The sun is setting but I only know that because the trees are hued amber and the shadows have all come together to form super-shadows and in the time it took to explain that everything turned tender violet. The colors don't change that fast during the day. It must be sundown.
Skeletons of fragile flies fall on my shoulders, neck, and typer but I think they're only shedding. That's all we do when we die! We shed our skin. We become new again! Is it odd to consider maybe death brings life? Is the only Phoenix a bird? Aha! I say, "Nay."
No comments:
Post a Comment