We Fill Each Other with Prayers

I don't really go fast but am often interpreted that way. The tones comprising the crow's morning cries are so rich, so variegated, one almost forgets to write. Yet another job lost to lies, yet another highway crossed in tears.

When I was born it was snowing and my father was fast asleep. You remember the light in pine trees at certain times of day, and kissing boys your mother didn't care for, and all the while an invisible white swan was circling your chest, waiting on someone who would see it, me. The cherry pie was good, not great, but good and that's enough, it's more than enough.

An abundance of crushed mammals on the road east to the point where grief feels almost beside the point. The wind was too strong, everyone had one hand on their head to keep their hats from blowing away, but when I mentioned Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, nobody laughed. Oh effort, you are such a selfish lover!

The poem you want to write vs. the poem you do write vs. the poet others need you to be for their own obscure (and sometimes not-so-obscure) reasons. Dylan songs that don't grow old include "Shelter from the Storm," "I and I," "Man in the Long Black Coat" &c. I won't organize my books until they're all here and right now they're not, they're scattered, they're in exile in at least half a dozen basements across western Massachusetts.

The seamless whole again perceived and for once the perception remains - a sort of low level hum - and within it one writes, this. Every time the opportunity arose to stop and buy some McDonald's I didn't, I kept going. Roast lamb on Sunday and the grief one always feels having known the quadruped they're consuming.

That back-of-the-throat taste that won't let you forget what you've done. Oddly, there are no answers, not the way one expects, and you have to look at this clearly before acceptance of it actually settles. Write, don't write, but please, write.

In the morning, listening to crows, waiting on sunlight to reach the prisms my daughters hung while I was gone. We fill each other with prayers that nobody else can pray.