Why is it, when I am hopelessly dependent,
I can finally be alone?
I watched my pathology take a wicked turn.
Cards were passed, condolences confirmed.
The out-of-date decor of every waiting room
Filled with nothingness, like my eyeball
Up with gas, and the chedda chedda walkers
Of the ambulatory visitors
Came shrunken, with engorged eyes.
I have officially seen too much.
The shapes of letters have worn away
As the mind has grown to encompass larger breathings.
The shadows have become presences,
Vibrant as they quaver along the inexplicable
Rhythms of distant galaxies. And the visions
That have commenced are merely memories
Of the dolphin star, the flowers from
Other electricities, scintilla
Of the coral-conscious sea, as pinholes
In the fully alive stone disclose
An alternate reality of light.
Such joy in the journey, through the darkness,
Such discovery, and love in things taken for granted:
The feel of the sheets, the warmth of the morning,
The smell of pansies and wintergreen oil.
And there's pleasure in doing things never
Done before, that were too easy to risk,
Like sensing where on the bed I laid my socks,
Which sofa crevasse the remote slipped inside,
And how the piano's too out-of-tune to play.
The jumping spider has moved to greener webs.
I measure my life in eyedrops and Tiger Balm rubs.
But now I know what the crows, deep inside the mystery,
Say, as I shake the jar of peanuts on the driveway.
