You really think you are alone, but you're not.

...
You know the words even if your argument condradicts:

"...there is nothing new under the sun."

 Ecclesiastes 1:9-14.

How isolated we are sitting cross-legged under the hot Spring sun while birds dart by, suspicious of us, of an unknown thing on the ground, suspect, with flapping bright pages open in our lap.

Too bright to read, too dense to break through the next door wall.
Silent soundproofing fills the air.
Don't say it.


No one else says it, so don't you say it. 
No one sits despairing but talking.
Because they would have told me...
...I despair like you do.


Angels answer my cell phone.
We despair, too.
We have.
We will.
With you.

We are despairing in groups together, holding hands while birds battle their foes, yet build nests with long strings of horse hair from a tail beaten and twisted in a windy pasture until it flew to my hand and I to the yard and then to the bird.

...

do you wonder,

...like I wonder?

Wonderings burrow in like hibernating chipmunks. 

They'd zipped here and there in the meadow, entertaining watchers. 

Perked up to listen, then laid low to hide. 

Prey searching for seeds while predators watch for their little meaty selves.

Cold's demands push prey to bury; bury themselves down deep in the dark white ground.

Like this, wonder sets in to infection.

Beginning as quick looks,

ending burrowed in 

as a deep redwood splinter stuck half way under a fingernail.

Obsess if you'd like.

When the splinter emerges;

Because it will.

it leaves its red wounded mark from entrance to exit with no timetable for man or woman.

Not personal, just microbiology.

White blood cells work endlessly to pull away dead, dying cells.

...

waiting and forgetting

that's what I'm doing.

...
wait for the end of the week...yay, it's Friday!

wait for payday (and forget to p/u the receipt)

forget people on my list.

forget which of the offspring do not like coconut, do not like crab.

forget my favorite song before the Beatles, although it may have been Rawhide.

wait for love, wait for peace.

I'm waiting and I hope I never forget how

...

oh, the blunders

...
While sitting, caring and smiling, 
my thinking drifts away; 

snapping back with a shattering blurt. 
...
The mouth is as clean as what comes out, not what goes in. 

This explained why outward laws were no longer necessary. Jesus knew what is in our hearts is what God seeks.

Laws were first, 
but then thinking became more important: 
loving, believing in, caring for
and hoping; 
all of utmost importance though essentially invisible.

No stone messages to remind. 

Who can be perfect?
God.

Who can try?
Me.

Who can try and fail, 
stumbling on the rocky steps
skin tearing from my shin?

Me, wiping away the blood.


I do love fiercely.

But what comes out of my mouth 
sometimes trips and stutters. 
Why can't the mind stick to hope 
and care and sweet love?


I don't know who knows, 
but I will continue to follow 
along the fragile, skinny, snaking path; 

with wind blown behind me 
disintegrating where I was. 

I drag my body along,
like a camel following something, 
anything, in the Sahara. 
...

do you hurt? where does it hurt?

...
Right here, in my chest,
breathing shudders, rasps.
Sick again at Christmas.

Pneumonia with a painful shot,
please don't, please don't hold me down.
I'm left to breathe while the visiting continues.
Give the doctor a drink, 2 drinks; one for the road.

Fear of the gasping, hurting lungs
and gentle neglect here in the dark.
Don't cry, it plugs up the throat.
"Why now?", I hiccup.

I need my Christmas,
the presentation of pyramids of wrapped gifts.
Mine being a gift of a ceramic rooster,
expressing my yearning;
and a comb for the boys.
My faith in these perfect gifts
portends perfect longed-for joy.
I need to be there just in case.

Cold morning for such breathless breathing.
Cold morning for unwrapping
with fear of disappointment.
I surely love these distant relatives.
Distant in the same Christmas Cheery room.

Gosh it's cold with the fire roaring,
light glaring it's magnesium,
camera flash popping.

My hurting chest sends me to lie down.
Again I listen to noise outside my room.
Shouts of pleasure, generosity and fear.

They brought a tiny tree with lights.
Why does it shine
so coldly in the window
when I am so warm?

Better to gasp at midnight in quiet,
with soft Christmas lights glowing.
Maybe sleep will come.

What a strain this Christmas celebration has become.
I cough, I pant, whispering,
"I hurt. Do you know I'm in here?".
...

around here

...
how to let it happen is to let it roll.
dates, important dates lie in wondering waiting.

8 or so.
wondering when what where who.

So we wait.
a flowing holiday unwraps
as slowly as the most ordinary day,
sitting here to see what's there.

Oh, yes.
groceries.
dusting.
a tree.
only 1 box of memories look good.
just as good.

together.
watching a first season and laughing HA!
electronics have their place in family.

together all at once at the funk gig
where music lubricates the relationships
into a well run machine.

and there you are.
that's the holiday.
that's it.

with much tenderness against
the usual, itchy, over-planned lists and dates.

this is just the thing.
...

2 steps

...
Only two steps.
You wouldn't know it was only two, not a trek of a thousand.
Two footprints.

The mud reeks, the footprints slide into tracks, slipping down, no telltale sole of a shoe to see.

Those two steps will take themselves through eons.
Leaving drying splots until dirt-like sand, aggregate with smooshed compost, begins to break down atomically.

Perhaps not into atoms, maybe only into molecules that will stick, floating in the ionized space, just above the flooring.
...
...