Below Me

(yesterday's poem was an invisible one called "...silence")

That is no grid below me
That is hearts to a floating cloud
That is clouds to a broken son
Arms akimbo and wider than lust
Shoulders shudder, lips flinch

That is no plan below me
That is nature and happenstance
That is son to a mother of one
Her home, his home, his home, far
Cups half-filled, clean

That is blindness and castaway thunder
Can’t shake up for sprawling out
That is breakfast and no he shouldn’t have
Can’t make up for the devil’s calling out

That is desert below me
That is what I drove through fire for
That is what I worked and pined for
But no matter, silence is trust
Camera flashes, shutterbugs

That is paralysis and stained lightning
Failing to make the metal crackle
Failing to keep the natives in
That is the cashing in of majesty

October 6, 1998