The curtain descends, everything ends, too soon, too soon...

This is a story of nothing nice. A story of human racing. 

The story,
Of the human,
Race.

(A to the the, to the unh, unh, unh.)

It’s a story of take you below.  Put you below.  Leave you below.

(Darling, speak low.)

Of ears that never stop ringing.

Of things you shouldn’t forget, but inevitably do.

(Of do diddie do dah, dang diddie doh.

Oh,

oh,

a 1, 2, 3, ohhhh…)

               (…sweet chariot. Bother me to carry me home.)

But this is someone else’s story, so you needn’t listen to it.

I’ll play the next song loud enough,
And, we'll swing, swing, swing it away.

Again, Sam.

Again!

"The city dweller rushes, the farmer moves steadily, the monk is solemn in the way he moves. Their objects are different." --J.H. van den Berg

There is a return that cannot seem to rest.   

Push, push on.   

Feet and hands treading, body surging, and the water moves with us.  Closing my eyes to each particular, smelling to find my way around.  Return now, my familiar unfamiliar.  It is new, and yet what I meant to say to you that night was: “This is what home feels like.”  The provisions are stored, and the screen door lets in enough wind, enough light, enough life.  You might have agreed with that.

Can we stop talking about this now?  

Perhaps.  

          But. 

   Then.  

Can you count the ways things are said aloud?  It's all in the listening.

And, breathing takes the form of in and out, 

a return that cannot rest.  

And we'll all fall down...

                                                Rickity splicket splat,

                              The moon spit out a bat.

                              Over the hill,

                              Under the mill,

                              Rickity splicket splat.

                                          

                                          Betimes we may,

                                          Betimes we might, 

                                          The bottle’s bold,

                                          And the nursemaid’s right.

                                              

                                                Fetter you once,

                                                Fetter you twice,

                                                Never let go,

                                                Or the boxbender’s price.

             Me daddy dug a three foot pit,

             Put in a spade and took out a fit.

             Round in the morn,

             Down in the horn,

             Me daddy dang a skim skam skit.

Now, as we wrestle our grim disease...

Look what I hold, behold, in my hands!  Wonderous.  Joy.  We’ve travelled up moist and darkened autoroads for this, this wonder that is man. 

It is slowly forming the coolest, sweetest drips.  Rivuleting down the creeks between my fingers.  A coolness I have never quite known.  When first I held her, my mouth rushed to taste and crunch and reel back from her.  My face turned quickly to my left to smile and beam in the direction of my laughing, buffling friends.  We are overwrought; we are joy. 

What is this that I hold here?  Summer’s never spoken like this.  Her cooling streams were threats, not treats.  She sheds a tear, losing her last bit of power.  

But, this, this power of ours.  Oh, what a wonder.  Let me never forget this.  Let me never become used to this.  Let me always throw my head around in simple glee at this.  Let me always ask, What, what is this?

But, already, all ready, I notice my smile’s faint smugness.  I look back at our automobile, and I know I will forget this too.  

Perhaps more than anything, Summer cries for this.  Cries for us.

In her tears, I hear faint askings:  When is the last time you stopped short?  Fallen on your face at the turn between your breaths?  For that too is a wonder.  I beseech you:  remember this.  Each step is a laying down of meaning.  How will you shape it?  Or, be you a pile of mere flesh? 

But, I make retort:  Perhaps this, this possibility, marks the greatest wonder of all:  We, the creatures who make routine out of everything once wonderful. 

Yes or no.  Water or tears.  Wonder wears wearied paths between your fingers and mine.

Don't leave you be...

 

 

Your chair next to mine next to hers next to his 

next to yours next to mine.   

We go round.  We stay still. 

There you be.  You look by and past. 

  

I see it in your back though.  Taught, well-hemmed, fair secure against this storm of our old age.  Can see it still when you turn, revolving armor, armadillo, armada.   

Your arms fly about and bother with me now.

I will hear what I want to hear, so please leave me be.  
I'm worrying myself with the nothingness before I was.  I've had it turned the other way for so long.  Friendly with my past, missing it, jelly-teared about it, shrine making.  And, this holy disregard for the every next year...months, weeks, soon be.

   

This cannot be the place for my dignified years. 

I cannot have planted for this. 

We have wronged me, myself, mine chair.  Next to yours next to hers next to his.  Wrong ways around.  This whole time.  

My lips dry and caked.  

It’s no matter.  Your arms bring me cloths to wet and quiet them. 

Armature of my old age. Mater Matuta Maturus.

I must worry about my beginnings now.  So, let me be.

But, you.  Burn out the stays that keep you always forward turned.  Shed jellied tears for the nothing from which you came. 

 

There were two halves of nothing.  This whole time.

Salty comfort for your breaths.