Forget the gas bill
for one moment —

open the window.
It’s two days after Christmas 

and a storm’s coming. So what?
We’re in the week between, the week

of supernatural letdown — gifts
broken, disillusionment setting in,

panic arriving ahead of the New Year,
long, long January and February

stretching out gray before us.  So what?
Open the window and let the cold in.

Let in the riotous air that swoops and dives
before a storm.  Let it in and see what it stirs

in your stale rooms — don’t you ever get tired
of being in here?  If you’re not going out

then get the out into your in and maybe
this year will be different and you’ll see the seasons

everywhere, not just on
a screen or through imprisoning glass. But

you’ve got to start somewhere.  Open
the window.  Get cold.  Get ready. 

Hipper than thou,
the bluejay abides.

Easier on the eyes
than a corduroy jacket.

Far better racket
than vampire ukelele.

That bluejay calls daily
from low in the hedge

by the granite ledge
in the back yard, son.

Loud as a cannon.
Man, I like that music — 

hipper than yours, it
makes things happen.

Just breathe, 
see what rises from that:
no need to speak.

Can you even observe it
long enough
without speaking of it?

I do not understand
how it is that you cannot see
what you carry in your breathing:

the wave of the world, how it
moves, how it doesn’t fail ever.
How we are a wave,

even when
we do not see it,
feel it, know it’s there.  

Live by the sword,
die by the same.

Which sword you choose
makes a difference —
so many from which to choose —
scimitar, cutlass, saber, rapier.
Katana, swift and clean;
claymore, a pounding cut;
gladius, short hot thrust.

You end up open to the sky no matter what.

Do you choose the one you’ll carry
to determine the way you’ll fall?

What if
you just don’t bother
to choose a weapon of your own at all —
picking up one dropped
by a fallen comrade
or enemy?

And if you simply
stand there empty handed,
will you assuredly fall?

Here is a cluttered bed
full of open books and sweatclothes
and a man, an unimportant man
who has pushed just enough aside to lie down.  

We’re not too concerned here
with his name, his face, or his history.
Let’s focus on the bed,
a former center of the universe.  

Back in the day this bed was a black hole.
Two would fall in and when they came out
they were transformed, they were somewhere else,
they were in a different time.  Now it’s what’s left

after a black hole collapses on itself. No one 
comes here except to sleep and when he wakes
it’s in exactly the same world and time
as when he laid down, and he hasn’t changed a bit.

In the scheme of things, the bed means little to him now.
Why are we wasting our time on this?  If there’s nothing
to see in the bed, on the bed, why speak of it at all?
He rubs his eyes and glares at us.  Nothing to see here,

get out you freaks, don’t make this into something.
If you want to mountain a molehill
take issue with these windows
which allow so much light to get in here and so early.  

His agitation is understandable yet ultimately
unimportant to us.  Look instead at the bed
covered in flung asides — button down shirts,
magazines, extra pillows.

It explains so much.  This was the former center
of the universe.  Everything came spinning toward
these long unwashed sheets, these broken springs.
That sad man, unimportant, not wanting anyone to see.
 

How far is it, he said,
to Athol from here?
Not sure, I said, I could
look it up for you.

I am surprised at you,
he said,  a little of his fondness for me
starting to leak away.  I am surprised
at you.  You always used to know
your place on this earth
and almost exactly
how close or far it was to any town
within a hundred miles or so
of where you were standing.

Really,
I said, I’m sorry, I don’t remember that
at all.  I’m sorry I have disappointed you.
Ah, he said, won’t be the last time,
or the last time I forgive you either.
You’re my son and maybe you being lost
is my fault.  Not sure I’d know
where I was either
if I had to deal with me.

And with that he shut down and shut up
and we sat together while I tried to recall
how far it might be to Athol
and tore up my brain trying to figure why
that might be of such importance to him
now.

Not a rock
but mostly hard,
more an old candy that
seemed OK to try but
was at once spit for being
mostly nasty,
a little sweet still
yet obviously more sickening.

Not good for you, semblance
of a good thing, model of a 
desire, almost a worthy
undertaking? Ha. 

Big, old.
Gray, big.  
Old, stumbling loud.
Loud, stupid sometimes,
too smart often, but always loud
with smart or dumb.

Big, gray, old, 
loud, smart, dumb:

contradiction contradance contrail, 
chemtrail conspiracy denier. 
den father,
fast companion.  

String a bunch of words.  
Make a bunch of meaning:

look, what he is, is fraudulent.
What he is, is over.
He wants to leave
and is too cowardly.
He wants to change
and is too invested.

He wants his name
to conjure a different candy
and is too late.  

Whenever I witness your sobbing
for people you do not know 
and then see you turn back
to your affairs without thereafter
being at all changed,

I see a wind that stirs dead leaves.
I hear a breaking glacier slump into the sea
and a volcano holding back fire as a lie
is called out, then carved into
a cornerstone. 

Long traveling overland waters
they call rivers, small still overland waters
they call ponds, wide still overland waters
they call lakes, water beyond land
they call seas or oceans.  

Lands
that rise above others, hills;
highest rise lands are mountains,
sunken lands, valleys.
Wide oceans of land
are called plains.  

They call their own clusters
cities, suburbs, towns, villages. 
They cluster everywhere, in groups,
near any waters or far from them,
almost everywhere they can stand.

All the groups
call themselves something that means
we the people.  
They call the other groups,
not the people.

They hurt each other.
I think it is on purpose they do,
oddly enough.
They call out a lot of names
while hurting each other,
all different sounds,
though all mean the same.

If I hurt them, though,
impartially, 
not meaning to but doing it 
casually,
popping a mountain or 
raising a sea or wind or rain
enough to soak
or drown them
in fire or wet,

when they call out then?
Oddly, all the noise they make
sounds the same.

I am walking to a far country
with stones in both shoes.

People say I’m an emigrant or an immigrant, 
depending on where they are standing.
There are those among them who wish to know
why I don’t stop and remove the stones,
and others who don’t care if I ever do.

As everything I’ve described is imaginary
but real as well, I’m told I should turn my attention
to the answers.

The country I am leaving? What name should it be called?
The destination?  Should it be revealed at all?
The stones? Does it matter if they are large or small? 
Should I stop and take them out or learn to suffer well?

See?
The journey’s now thoroughly interrupted
with this over-fastidious attention.

If you expect every traveler
to know these things,
how will travel ever again
be worthy of our time?