We used to often sleep outside
(where did I leave my memories?)
(how long was I ever here? Did I sleep here with him? How often did we sleep outside, really?)
Some nights it was cold
We’d nuzzle together under a thick down comforter
(sedated by a heavy meal and bottles of red wine no doubt)
Our bodies entwined
To be warm
We would lay in the dark
(before he joined the cult of IKEA.. After we’d always have those lanterns hanging, swinging in the night breezes, fat with votives…
Aw, Leo always loved his night-lights… But IKEA seemed to enable his candle expendatures ten-fold)
He would usually fall into sleep before I
(those were the days before iPhones so I wouldn’t be playing with electronics then like I am now…)
Laying outside in the dark
Sometimes we’d talk
Drift into silence
A bright falling star would return us to conversation…
Like brothers unable to rest from understanding of knowing a listening ear was always present
Or
Yes
He’d sleep
I’d listen to his snoring
And the tree frogs
And the crickets
Whatever birds
Wind in the trees, far-off or close… Like some gigantic ocean swelling and crashing
Sometimes the tractors working the vineyards in the valley below
Or the trucks rumbling along Hwy 29…
And his snoring
Then…
We were out on the deck
The big one
Out front…
Or is that Back?
The down side. The tall side.
High up in the air
Safe from mountain lions
And safe from creatures…
Now I’m alone here
On my little deck
“my”
That he built years ago because he liked the view from here
Seen standing on a ladder
Years ago
Told in a story
From the endless stories
I am wringing out of him day by day
(I’ve been with him these ten years… His general decline has always been apparent… Just aging… Taken for granted… Nothing acute… Only that I know he’s dying. Dying… “dying”. So I’ve been told. I always knew. Feared. But not it fills me with a respect. Fear. To be humble. Help my elder. Listen with soft ears. Respond with silence and acuiescence. How come it wasn’t always like this? Why have I hated my loves so much? Him. Why?)
I’m on this deck by myself
Fearing creatures
Fearing the cold without him
Piled on too many blankets
Wore down my iPhone already
Using the old 3G backup. That black one you borrowed. The broken one I fixed. Now I’m talking to it. Through it. To you. You.
I never quite understood poetry that wasn’t written for the writer
Really To the writer..
Why read other’s coded thoughts and emotions?
Sing Your Life!
Or written words on paper
Can you write?
(What is that sound over there?)
Poetry is useless
But for one’s self
But for the universal self that resonates in the heart of everyone
I thought something different earlier
But I mean this now
Talking to myself in the dark
Silent
But for the ocean in the trees
My finger flying over the screen
One
And the crickets
And that tree frog
Hadn’t found his mate yet
I only saw one falling star before I started to type
and my legs are too hot now
But might it get colder later?
Leo isn’t lying next to me
He was so tired
All Souls Day
He’s said mass over the ashes of his friends for years
Today he put them all to rest I the sepulcher I dug for him
And put a shovel of dirt over each emptied bag of ashes
Four.
Five?
Their mementos
Their name tags
Their processing papers
Plastic boxes
“temporary containers”
Holding some of them 20 years
Two candles
Under the fiberglass dead Christ
He’s sleeping now
Hard to coax into adventure
Or enjoying the simple things of life : God’s Good Earth
How I love… All of the very simple things of life, oh…
But he’s so tired now
And I’m preparing to sleep outside in the dark
On my own
On the side deck
The little one
My western view blocked by the roof
So beautiful
These stars
Endlessly talking to eachother
Pulses through the infinite space
Like my words to you
Reaching out across
A blink of God’s magesty into the seeing eye of God
(I read in a book today… Once all Christians believed there was life in everything… Like I love of the pagans and aboriginals… All these things I hate… Death culture… It has nothing to do with Christianity… Not really, no… It’s just Dominant Culture. Idiotic worker ants who fancey themselves FREE… Aimlessly perpetuating wasteful cluttering with no ample queen to guide them.. Disorganized ignorant hives with no heart devouring all the nectar of life… The Royalty have abdicated and are living off the scraps of their prolific dumb servants.)
I am very alone.
I always have been.
A million light years from my nearest neighbor
Feeling them in my heart
But waiting so long for a wink
Starving for a companion to share my joys with. Give my pleasures to. Recieve their loving echoes… And listen to their own true songs of their heart. Starving. Longing. Waiting for it. Working for it. Imagining it under the infinite sky.
Silently singing about it
Accompanied by the ocean of wind and strings and trumpets of crickets and frogs.
The voice of coyotes now.
Someone must think this is funny
Oh, it must be
I must be sleeping already
Musing with the stars
The alcohol evaporating from my nostrils
Dreaming of waking up into my life
ten years ago
a girl
lent me her car
(was it Dee? or some blond girl I’ve forgotten… Meredith?)
not a car
an suv, green
I drove down with excitement
expecting ritual and companionship
the Billy gathering for Halloween
on a Sunday
I’d worked all my hours tight
and rushed down the mountain
arrived at Saratoga Springs
to everyone leaving
Sunday
they had to work tomorrow
I…
walked around a few minutes
put out
wondering what next…
Leo arrived
I think we said we’d meet there
so there we were
most everyone else gone
we walked to the hot tub together and soaked
I was all over him
and remember asking him his sun sign
“oh, you mean astrology? I’d rather not say. whenever I say what I am people say ‘oh no!’ it’s the worst one”
I tried to convince him I didn’t think like that.. worst one… what: scorpio? Pieces? Aries? no no no
he told me Gemini
I said “fuck you! I’m a gemini! we’re not the worst one! who says that!?”
he took me back to his house and I did his chart the next day:
he was a 29° Taurus anyway… Cancer rising (great chest) and Gemini Rising… well, yes…
but before then
that night
I followed him home
through winding mountain road
terrible steep dirt “trail”
he said he’d make dinner and suggested I build a fire
which I did
in the beautiful broad fireplace
got it strong, bright and warm
stared at it a while
but next to an entire wall of books
I had to see
so went to read the spines
entire shelves of Bibles
books about Jesus
other religious studies
and one shelf of David Sedaris, Shirley McClaine and Armistead Maupin
he popped his head out of the kitchen and remarked on how good the fire looked
I said
‘ Should I be addressing you as “Father”? ‘
“Only if You’re into that” he replied with a smile in his voice
he did vespers and mass for all saints
I did a ritual for Birch
scratching it’s Ogham into the ground between two large pines
pouring birch beer onto the ground, then into my mouth
invoking all of the spirits on the other side to help mr start a new chapter in my life
and indeed
in they they have
… oh, what I know now …
this Year Samhain is on the 7th, so I’ll do my ritual then
Salvia in the dark…
what requests..?
but Ten Years
similar days
entirely different ways
but He I am grateful for
however it’s been
it’s been always there
in and with me
entirely different than life without that love
so… Thank you
.iP
what’s the reason to stay alive
when you sleep alone
when your naked body is not side long against another’s daily?
when you see the same views every day
no matter how spectacular
mundane
or exotic
if you’re not staring at that vista with a friend
or telling him
again today
your feelings of the clouds in the sunset
it’s really not worth the struggle
to say your rituals alone
tell your stories into the silent air
all your beauty falling into
representations of meanings
with out a living being
an audience
an acolyte
a companion
i would do the same
I would do the same
I will do the same
if I’m not careful
turn attention to what I know
over there
by the campfire
not here
just here
God alone in the Desert
it’s our dance
one of the many songs
but yes
the one we come out for
you and I
you & you & you and i
.iP
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