"Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn."
To break the chill of loneliness
She wrapped herself extrinsically
In social scenes of mild duress
And dates of rankest gaucherie –
‘To seek always’ – courageous stuff —
To settle is an abjectness:
What warmth she found was not enough
To break the chill
Of loneliness
We have known the music of emptiness,
and truth be told,
at times, we have sought it.
Times when we seek,
not to make sense of it all,
but to accept the senselessness
and vanity that comprises much
of life.
This is not sadness,
it is a hollowness:
this us not despair,
it is more like
resignation —
But it is also
a type of detoxification,
an emptying out
to allow for the possibility
of refilling.
Soft the rain falls
On a little girl’s dreams
As the windows streak with tears
For the mother and father she barely had:
The ghost of her Mama, the voice of her Dad —
Before she came here to be told, “don’t be sad”
In this impassive place
Still the rain beats
On the roof overhead
As her mind jumps past the years
To a festive wedding with her the bride;
Lovely, with her Daddy there by her side –
But she can’t make the face out – the love, the pride –
Nor see her Mama’s tears
Sad the wind blows
From the far mountain streams
To join with her in her plea
Soft the rain falls
On a little girl’s dreams
With nobody there
To see
Grief,
The guest we never want,
Who will not leave
Is not an academic thing,
Nor is he quite reducible
By words
For there is no reality
That’s greater than
What can’t be touched again
And here it is:
Another sunset, meaningless
Within this strange and empty
Vantage-point
They tossed a Frisbee back and forth
Out on the college lawn;
Their only labor on that day
Was jumping after mis-throws.
I watched them through a window-pane
For several hours, straight,
A book that I was reading lay
Mostly uncomprehended —
And as I watched these other guys,
Whose names I didn’t know,
I looked around me at
My fallow dorm room, new
(My roommate I had yet to meet)
And wondered if I’d ever get to know them.
A junior transfer, me, I was
Both worried and excited:
But feeling like
I’d walked into the middle of
A play, one which
The others saw a first act that
I’d missed.
Another friend came out to join them,
And he brought three cans
Of something they all sat awhile and drank.
And I was like a kid again
In still another neighborhood,
Watching another set of boys
And hoping for an invite.
Looking down, I noticed that
I hadn’t turned a page
Of Dandelion Wine
In quite awhile,
The world was autumn-ready,
And I guess that I was, too,
In my distracted way.
Another moment of my ever-long
Distracted
Way
From across a far ravine.
An echo in the forest
From across a far ravine;
The last words that you said to me
In memory still green
An echo in the forest
That my lonesome ears discern:
The sound of your departing
Knowing you would not
Return
the days of games
are here and gone —
a king, a queen,
a rook, a paw(n)
a knowing where
each piece is at,
like sharing secrets with
your cat
a puppet show
with made-up names:
these lonely nights,
and days
of games
