A Pilgrimish Lust

The sky arches from one line of trees to the other - maple and pine-lined hills in the center of which I write and read and gesture vaguely in the direction of prayer. Is it honesty that separates sinners from saints or simply the willingness to step into a fire? I ascend Sam Hill amazed as always at what a self-righteous and insufferable prick I can be. "If you want to walk with me then keep the fuck up." Well, the dog still loves me, or seems to, which may be why I always keep them handy. It's no use complaining you're alone when you refuse to give anyone a reason to stay. Demanding, brooding, mocking, whining . . . "I got your list of reasons she left you right here." Most of my teachers have observed that we don't really need to know more than that one step makes clear the next yet I still can't stop preferring this one to another. Grace begets a pilgrimish lust, as splotches of green moss extend across a dozen roadside maples, each more ruined than the last. Oh roadside salt, what price have we paid for our so-called certainty? So I stop and turn back, so what? It's raining and I'm lonesome and I don't want to die alone.