The General Specific...

That's a good song... but this isn't about it.

Cather Chronicle II

The current state weighs
on me like the thunderous
calm of 100 larks. This
ambivalence isn't new to
me; it lingers between
the hollow purples and
grays of the evening west.
My affection for this
land of soil and sand and
cisterns seers the moistness
of my heart. Just as my
frustration for this home
of intolerance and ignorance
and idealism burrows through
the catacombs of my mind.

I love this state, my
state, with a reckless,
painful abandon. A
feeling strong enough to
move millions to action,
inaction, one in the same.
Needless efficacy, brazened
rapture, all sent kicking
and singing though a
thoroughfare entrenched.
These bring me back to
the pale tans and grizzle
of adjacent corn fields and
pine trees, spending months
amid the two.

We weren't meant for this
land of endless sky and
evasive sinew, nor was it
meant for us. But here we
are on the brink of
affection, and I've missed
my chance of leaving, and
you've missed the feeling
of the eastern wind and
foot after foot of dry
prairie grass. This weight
can wait while we allow
our codependence a chance.

This isn't a class. It's a love covenant.

I like... 

... sitting at Village Inn at 11 on a Tuesday night, sipping hot tea with cream just as the conversation gets so uncomfortable I can hardly breathe. 

... discovering a dead battery in my 1999 maroon Mercury Sable after petting Chip, the horse with the Spartan mane, past midnight in the blank darkness of camp after a failed attempt at star gazing. 

... a #1 from Jimmy John's at 12:30 a.m., no tomatoes, as I'm on the brink of a breakthrough on my 10 page, double spaced history of sexuality paper. 

... following Lynne through the fluorescent light bulb aisles of Sunmart, slipping reduced-fat cottage cheese and avocadoes into the cart while she's preoccupied with the linguini.

... the faint taste of dirt as I sit in a worn, wooden Adirondack in late July and the wind removed the remains of 4 to 1 kickball match between 10-year-olds. 

... a strawberry margarita in the dimly-lit glow of the Starlight Lounge as I listen to a conversation about Elvis Costello three tables away. 

... the crisp January air seeping into my seventh story window as I wake up to a vibrating Samsung at 8:45 a.m.

... where all of this is headed.

Here we are... four wolves.

"Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It's that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that's what the poet does." - Allen Ginsberg

Empire State of Mind...

Cather Chronicle I

The diamond-studded expanse

flows for miles surrounding this

blanketed time capsule called

home. Nothing has ever looked

so sad or so beautiful. I can

almost feel Willa next to

me, the cold wet seeping

into our boots, shifting

our weights from foot to

foot to keep feeling, as though

the 360 degree cyclorama weren't

enough of a dusky rainbow

to remind us how full of

life we are. As the snow

stifles any green that

miraculously had held on

until early January, sullen

mauves breathe life to

life. I drift through drifts

of fallen sky and nostalgia.

Gone are the days of reckless

wandering, worn sheets that

held together tree-top forts,

screaming at trains as they

passed mere yards away, jars

full of dead lightening bugs.

Seventeen, sitting in the summer

darkness on the cool

refreshing pavement of

my driveway, intercepting

phone conversations

from houses away, waiting

for a baby-blue chariot to

tear, sparks flying, down

the street. They're present

only in the etched glass of

ice coating tree limbs.

The world is so still in

this place that it's hard

to believe that anything

has ever moved here before.

But the streets are throbbing

with light with color with

abandon. Willa's back. I

doubt if she ever really left.

I know, like she, that I'm

only repeating one of the

few human stories, retelling

it as though no on ever

has before. But both she

and I know better. The

hollow air, the beating shades

of winter, they're our tell,

chilling us much deeper than

temperature or fear or love

or nothingness.