Into the Order Called Narrative

When each breath feels as if it's being drawn up through water, lungs struggling like cattle in thick mud. When it rains a little on Sunday morning and a feeling of disappointment passes through you, a touch of nostalgia, none of it unwelcome. The coffee goes cold while I write, unable to break free from a demanding text (about the history of Worthington from the perspective of a witty pine tree). And the apples fall and linger in tall grass, and the groundhogs churn up corners of the yard, and the berry bushes are cut back, and the fire pit is cleared, and the chickens nap beneath jewelweed. Whatever wants to be seen will be seen, while whatever hides is also seen, i.e., stop asking me to explain myself. One goes through journal entries for the prior month and senses something is missing in their life, a thing that as yet has not been put in words and begins again the only work that matters. Upon waking we put our dreams into the order called narrative, the telling always an abjuration of the original experience. Spider webs on the fence line. Oh and the swallows are gone, filling the one sky where my eyes don't go. Alas, this story! This is my heart, not a fist, and if ever it unclenches you will find in it a diamond.