I’m sleeping outside tonight

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