Sometimes I feel like my heart is coming untuned, the sense of ready and wonder falling undone by too much time in the corner like that guitar you don't have time to play anymore. Wrapping up some recent very large loose ends was rather like time in the corner, I think; there was so much going on it was like fasting secretly. There was really not even enough time to tell anyone what you/I/we were really up to. We had a friend, in Gatlinburg, who wrapped bungee jumping cords as a side job. That's the kind of ends I'm talking about--serious, somebody's-life-depends-on-this kind of "wrapping". And just when I thought I'd reached a close, somebody sneaked up behind and slashed the sheath. BAM! Out poured everything in life that can never be contained anyway. Which is fine because I don't really recognize my life when it's NOT messy.
I still write, but old school--in a thin, little grey book with toothy, ivory pages. The initial scribbles were shyest, like first-comers to a middle school dance. They would like to have unwished themselves if only they'd been sketchy pencil. But, graphite cannot bleed quite like a pen. It can blend and smear and even go away, if you like. But, only stains tell a story. Blood stains, tear stains, grass stains...stained glass. Why tell a story with stained glass? What a difficult medium--sharp and hard. Very like life, I suppose, shot with beauty as soon as even the faintest of light comes through. The flaws are overwhelmed, overridden. In poetry, the connecting rhythm is the light and the flaws are likewise overwritten when the heart is breached and when the soul is stormed. Where are the words to wrap around this? I cannot pull a storm out of myself and hand it to you. It would rather reach out
and pull you in...
slowly,
through stained,
toothy, ivory pages.