Upon a Time

“You know, Anathema,” she said, “I believed in magic, once.
And since that time, I’ve never known where I belonged.”
She closed her eyes and waited, but the whisper didn’t come.

She saw the pale and bleached out version of her life on fast forward, how
The water swelled and pushed at the threshold of the valley house.
Her blood cells filed, one by one, buoyant through the vessels,
While the rafts all shuddered, sinking, to rest with the ashes of the homes of men.

“There was sun, then, you’ll remember, and the reptiles on the rocks,
Blinking lazily and soaking up the light, until we circled back, to the origin.
If you wish to find the light, Anathema, seek the serpents of the globe.”

The raccoons root for mussels at the bottom of the creek,
While the herons wade the rushes in the shallows down the way.
The bridge connects, spans the diffusion of the customs she reviled,
Disturbs the peace of trickling water and the destiny of the prey.

“You never told me how we got here, how we got to this same day.
The swami said it didn’t matter, said I’d find my counterspin.
I suppose your thoughts do cancel mine, and that seems quite enough.”

The barkeep poured his bourbon with the ghost limb doctors made
And the ice cracked in the glass like his hand had as it crushed.
Somewhere else, the sigh through mountain passes spawned a downdraft
And twisted metal wings compacted the dirt a little tighter.

“I never noticed how my heart felt, as it contracted night and day,
Never noticed the futility to our haphazard ways of life.
Where will my memories go, when I’m not here to hold them?”

Update.

Time was, I could pretend he was the tide.
He was the force that washed their boat ashore in the
Summers when I’d wait outside with a popsicleFor the van to come around the corner.
There was that two story playhouse out back by the pool,
And a wooden shed, smelling of pine and full of curiosities,
From a time before ours.
We rarely went inside, would run to dinner when called,
And we’d both convince our parents to let us stay out later,
Because it was summer, and the sunset was prolonged
Just for us.
But night would fall, and we would pretend not to know.
The pavement was still warm long after dark,
Long after I’d lost my shoes.
And maybe I’d ride my bike around in circles, and watch the
Shadows of the moths projected bigger than life-size across
Grass bathed in yellow light from the street.
And maybe we imagined that we had to shout
Over the singing of the frogs.

I sat alone on the curb last night, in front of the vacant house.
The curtains didn’t stir; no kindly old face emerged.
The frogs sang still, and the moths fluttered around the streetlight.

It’s only that we grew up.

Ten.

If, some day, I flip out and join an anti-censorship group bent on...well, abolishing censorship -- blame this.

Anyway. Good news is that I might be flying out to California to stay with my brother for a while in August.

On the other hand, the only one who reads this blog anymore is my father, bent on, well...preserving censorship.

So I'm off to re-watch the fourth season of Buffy. And to plot my obtaining season five of Buffy and season two of Angel.

Allons-y!