Three hundred seventy days of ceremony ceasing with a snap
but fair is fair, except what gets recorded in a photograph war.
Through an airplane window I watched the sun coming
up and I’m going someplace I’ve never been before,
feeling just as hale as muddy books drying on a cabin floor.
Out in the midnight street there are boys haranguing passersby
while the girl around the corner, she don’t even have to try
The death of night - everyone was trying to get back into town
but you were on the dock, a satchel over
your shoulder and a suitcase by your feet
and you lifted two fingers to your mouth and whistled loud and bright
Down the draw in Clear Creek Hollow he was tearing out his notebook pages,
tossing them by fistfuls to the wind beyond the wild door.
And through an airplane window I watched the sun coming
up and thought of the days it creates and the days it can’t restore.
Each day the sun comes up it won’t be coming up anymore.
He sat down, took off this gloves, said “There ain’t no second birth,
maybe that’s a sad thing or a glad thing, just take it for what it’s worth.”
She wrote the L above the place where she meant to write her name
but she changed the o and v and e
to a, and t, and e and r.
she looked at it, dissatisfied, but she had written it in ink
He wrote a letter yesterday and he mailed it back in time,
but when the reply comes the Post Office won’t be open anymore.
Through an airplane window I watched the sun coming
up and by the crosslight I apprehended every pore
and felt the beat and marrow residing at the core.
The Preacher’s gaping at the clouds, looking for a sign
if he buries the bulbs this late will they germinate in time?
A band played under the Eleventh Street Bridge but the music
fell apart for everyone except the trumpet player
He just went right on blowing and blowing hard.
And the others set aside their instruments and watched.
They’ve closed the borders, I heard there was a murder it the pines;
they identified the body but no one had heard his name before.
Through an airplane window I watched the sun coming
up and I remember the picture I saw posted in the store,
and I’m certain you don’t look anything like that anymore.
The girl is on a ferry now, and there are muddy boots at the doorstep of her mind
and thoughts of living life the way an ant explores a watermelon rind
Thank you for sharing that with the rest of us. I didn’t want it to end. And now I am happily pondering, gazing.
Great lines.
“and every one of them words rang true and flowed like burning coal,
pouring off of every page like it was written in my soul from me to you”
This poem was like that for me. It brought tears to my eyes.
thank you.
I particularly enjoyed the part about changing “Love” to “Later.”