Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own

I had been wanting to play it
on my guitar at his funeral
planning it out in my head
at least 5 years before his death

I didn't play it, never learned it

"a house doesn't make a home...
don't leave me here alone..."
when the lines come up tonight
during Bono's elegy to his father
I bawl, like I haven't in the past four months
5 seconds that bring tears, ugly snorting
hand to wipe face

I pick up the book on grieving
I bought at the library booksale
for one dollar
read about telling our stories
again and again and again if need be
telling them until we don't need to anymore

I sit down, write this poem

the first clue

the music with no source
was the first clue
it came
when I had exhausted
all denial
of the paper folded into
perpetual motion
turning wheel
within
and understanding
at no cost to you
free, for an unlimited time
that this life is neither too hard
nor too soft
neither different
nor uniform
not burning with boredom
nor rollercoaster manic
hurtling off ice track
in the warm rain

every once in a while

every once in a while
a moment of clarity

world gone mad
stumbles on parity

seeing through rose-colored blinders,
duality

all come one in wake
of frugality

The Joy of Crying

“In trying to hold myself together…

I often want to cry, but I feel I can’t”

-- Sam Littlefair



I don’t even think about crying

It’s not an option

Either I feel shame

That I’m actively participating

In the world’s ills

Or I fancy that I have risen above emotion entirely,

Transcendent, free



Cry over the suffering of this finite population

Ever growing, dying out, feeding the ground

Feeding on the fruits of its poorest?

Frankly, I don’t feel worthy



Tonight I am reading “The Joy of Crying”,

An article by one Sam Littlefair

He reflects on what I too seldom do,

What I don’t often enough connect to –

This Whole Catastrophe we are living in



But Sam gives the green light, the thumbs up

The secret handshake



My playlist kicks up, “I Don’t Know” by Sir Paul

Perhaps the superficial Beatle’s first sonic foray

Into soul-searching



A heat and a fullness behind my eyes

With the magnificent opening chords

The feeling blooms, one half tear

Leaks from each parched orb

what still calls

I witnessed this once with my family
suburban sightseers in Florida, snowbirds

a Seminole wrestling an alligator

if you can get them upside down, he told us
rub the white underbelly
they become groggy
defenseless

it’s not so easy, I imagine
making cheap money
and not a lot of it
on tricks your grandfather taught you
when you were a kid

wondering how the fullness in your heart
at hearing the sounds, smelling the sulfur
of the Everglades
could translate into anything substantial
beyond a youth spent
playing with a Caucasian Ken doll
shooting
shooting himself repeatedly
in the foot

gravitate

how a layer of slick
rises up after cars pass
tire grooves lifting rain from the road
how the mind gravitates toward
what it abhors

embrace your dead and doldrums
they believe in you
will fertilize evergreens
of solstice and childhood dreams
made real

winter comes

leaves fall from trees
burdened by our noise
it is not of their world

ours stands apart
does not participate
in the great unfolding

our parents, our elders
those let go before ripened
likewise, fall into the ground

we do not see
do not acknowledge
that winter comes