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11/1 |
I'm running out of room.
This notebook so barren, yet fertile, but a season ago, is now the last harvest. A field of pumpkins in a land only I can reach. (I send postcards occasionally). No choice, no choice at all, so I wait for the clear, bright, cold, November stars. Seems I must die for a while, though you'll think it's sleep. Or I'll sleep for a while though you'll think it's death.
Must we all pass on for anything to mean what we need it to mean? Oh God, I softly whisper to an empty world. The moon so battered her battles fought long ago. That must be the reason for the wisdom reflected in her constant face. Oh how the poets, lovers, and shamans need her. Forests sacrificed in her name. But good verse, rarer than her blue countenance.
Can they really feel her, these wordsmiths, fragile couples and spirit travelers? Who can say?
I know enough to know that all the knowledge I have cannot erase my basic naiveté however deeply cowled in experience and cynicism. I walk aware but dumb, feeling like the Ass under Jesus and not even certain why.
The sharp, clean pain of knowing almost becomes the object of Lust--Ahh, how Mr. Burroughs must feel the needle even now--tells me how it feels to be a second rate poet in a third rate world and I comprehend the moon's addiction to the earth, and the earth's to the sun. Well, I roll back my sleeves (it's the kind of summer we like to blame on the natives of this turtle land) and bend to break the stems of these thick-skinned orange fruit, thinking all the while that none but the farmer cares for their questing roots. Me, harvester of night, young thief, naive and bright, will carry many, will carry until I can no longer feel my arms, will carry until my garments and the earth smell the same, will carry until the moon leaves this land I can only reach.
Does it help to know the faces I will carve may follow me in my sleep that looks like death, and can (if they so choose) guide me instead, and those that leer now won't mock me then (if they so choose), in my death that looks like sleep?
I must pray now.
I must pray that the candles in their hollows burn clean and lead me true.
I must pray and use my fear to guide me.
I must pray for my dark soul--so like the moon's back side--no one sees and all can locate.
The table's set and I
Welcome all saints.
copyright 2006
Askew |
