folly

sheltered in a hut of stone and wood and glass
i look out at the middle heavens spread like mayonnaise
                 from end to end...horizon to horizon.
the sky is seared white with a heat of rage and fury then
pounded dull and flat with Thor's mighty mallet.
the walls of light and glass hold my body for a time
but the walls of white and glass hold my spirit close
in a place sometimes as dark as my mind.
the eyes of the heavens are closed
as if in shame and nothing ever changes...
mid-day looks just the same.
sweltered in the bosom of a barren woman
is like being held in the sway of the haze of a summer
run its course... when each day is hotter and more humid
than the next, you think it just can't get any worse.
when the headaches and the back pain comes
i don't know whether to fight or run
and something tells me this day will get brighter before it's done.
there is almost a hint of blue in the packed clouds as if they
were glaciers crushed with iceberg weight and this is the same
pressure i feel today as i am rushed from one crisis to another...
i can hardly wait.

this waiting reminds me of how long it has taken my father
and myself to work out some semblance of civility between us.
he lives the way he signs his name-- at an even space
above and across the black line below.
it isn't like he does not see the line...
                               he sees the line
yet writes above it, as if the line had just been placed too low
and he is the only one who knows it.
he would never (could never?) hold a job,
seeing a sacking coming from down the hall
or around the corner, he would just as soon as quit.
he saw the line and wrote above it.

looking at the tossed salad of color in the sky
i notice that all the color spreads high
above the line of the horizon...

August 2008