here’s to
the big debates
of my past.

I’ve answered most questions
for myself
through myself
and the words of others.

my own words
are reserved now
for braiding the hair

on the heads of
these children
I am bringing forth
and the ropes I’ll need

to trim the sails
and steer them toward
a safe landfall.

anything else
is a waste of time
I don’t have.

so silent now,
the old man by the shore.
but happy to be more than unaware
of the smoke from the burning towns

behind him, inland.
one learns, over time,
when to turn the hose loose

and learn another craft,
when to allow others to rebuild,
when he is not needed.

I broke
my stride and routine
to watch
a speeding bird
fly into the yard,
dip down over
the sopping mud
by the still-covered pool,
miss the house by a mere foot,
and arc back
above the trees
on its way out.

My watch hesitated
as if to say:
why bother keeping time
when it can be stopped
so easily?

It started again
as soon as it knew I’d seen it,

but a part of me remained
arrested by memory,
thinking of the confidence
born of instinct
that let that bird
swoop low before me,
certain of its ability
to avoid collision
and not die ignominiously
before my skeptical eyes,
its body smashed
and ragged, its spirit
banished in the second it took
for a thin hand to move
across the numbers of a dial.

Some driver ahead of me
must have tossed
a cigarette
into the shoulder grass. 
Flames
are rising like thread
along the blades and smoke
is beginning to collect
above them.

I stop, whomp the fire
with a blanket from the trunk
and it spreads out
from the whoosh
of air.  Out of control!
I open the cell phone
and call it in.

The trucks come
and handle the crisis in minutes,
though it’s burned much
in a short time.  The men
seem almost bored
as they spray and shovel — small
wonder at what for them was small,
routine, nothing really.  Third one
today, in fact,
one of them tells me. 
Par for the course in August.

Too late now
I think of how careless
I’ve always been, how reckless
so often
in attempting to stop
destruction
with one blow. 
Too sure of my intelligence
to use any of it, when all it would take
is a method practiced
often enough to be automatic —

and too late, also, I find
I’ve again made a wildfire
into a metaphor. 

Perhaps
that’s also
part of my problem,
that everything looks like
my problem.

Come.

Come rejects, come
unfamiliar, come
unfortunate and turquoise
from holding your breath,
you’re welcome.

Come unremarkable
and sticky leftover faces,
you’re welcome.

Come sexy
block-built blood sausage
kin, you’re welcome.

Come.

This is a dim place
paved with embers
but it’s not impossible
to brush aside the floor
and find your place.
The walls are full of razors
but lean against them carefully
and you’ll find rest.

Come, I cannot urge you
enough, come.  We need you,
born of skin and rage, of
some errant parental mistake,
of heritage of smoking water
and acid farm, stinking of
slight and disfavor, street stained
and completely out of place,
come.

Come and we will fill each other.
Come and we will eat the arms of power
and wed in the light of pyres.
Come and link eyes and cheeks
with the remnant folk of divine discard
and learn to slink as dogs do, tongues wagging,
permanent smiles on our furry lips,
the best friends the kickers of dogs
will ever have.  Come neutered and resentful,
raped and fleeing, safe and restless in affluent
storm drains, risk-friendly wealthy lovers
of filth, ermine fingered, ruby worshippers
at the hearth of fantastic breads: come.

We will butcher the cows of Eden
and explain our hunger for eons after.
We will burn the grains of salt mines
and marvel at the flavor of tears.
We will speak in low voices of tree hearted stars
startled by the force of our longing
for the velvet force of rushing wind
and the iron whisper of mountains falling
upon the necks of kings.

Come.
There’s need of all of us now,
dented as we are, alternative
to clean and tidy, contrast to
mild, challenge to bracelet and ring,
tattooed incisors,
pierced through our revolvers,
branded frontal lobes and no dice
worth throwing with all sides rubbed blank
long ago.  Come

and stand.  Just stand here.
We will be the fence of honor,
falling before the riot,
pointing forward.

Come.

See the very name
of light itself
begin to shift.