Before money itself was a thing of beauty
Before money was a godly masterpiece
Before money came in waves across horizons
Before money opened its mouth upon all our past
Before money swallowed identity and shat out sales
Before money landed on us like a weighted blanket
Before money slept so long upon us we went numb

we had Animal and Stone and Element and Vision

We had Tree and Dogstar and Sigil and Knowing
We had Smoke and Herb and Sea-smoke and Sea-grass
We had Bark and Order and Beat and Bird-call
We had Cry and Enter and Pass-phrase and Secret
We had Ghost-church and Bell-chant and Tooth and Fur
We had Long-love and Mountain-crown and Reverberations

of whispers and prayers and the simple act of life as prayer

Prayer we did not segregate
into select moments
instead of embracing them
as they subsumed our timeline 

Prayer we did not expect to work
if it was not supposed to work
within great scope of life
as seen from beyond us

Prayer from before 
one could pray for money
from before one could think 
of money as beauty

Prayer centered in Animal 
and Stone and Element and Vision
from before the need for Money
or anything called Prayer

A door in front,
a door in back;
go in or out a window
if you choose (don’t let
the cat out is all I ask);
a wall could be taken out, 
the roof could be raised
and you could fly away,
the floor could fall in
and you’d be in the cellar,
you could easily climb out
of that; all those
are more or less available
right now and I am leaving out
the fanciful such as magic potions;
one could become invisible 
and vanish
without leaving at all;
point to be taken
from this is that escape
is not only not futile
but so easy. So easy
if you are a little creative
and have some care
for what you might do
to others as you go.

Toward the end he put his past
into a jar and closed it tight.
Put his drama and affection
away in glass reasoning that
if it fell and broke
from his aged clumsiness
it would get everywhere and 
he might cut himself on it,
so best to tuck it far away 
in the back of a corner cabinet
in his basement, a brokedown box
of shelves left by the former owner,
now deceased. 

Now that he was free of that
he could sit all day and not do
a damn thing. Not even
barely breathe. Not hang out
with friends. Maybe once in a while
touch a cat, pick his skin. He did not
imagine anything. Mice ran around his feet
and edged closer to climbing all over him.
It became clear that he didn’t care.

His flesh hardened 
to gray wood. His eyes
marbled into dull stone.
Got in and out of bed
like a log rolled off a truck
until the day he saw no reason
to get out of bed and stopped.

The jar in his basement
might still be there. If you can find it
among all the jars of old nails
and slips of folded paper
holding dried tomato seeds
kept for a spring that didn’t came,
if you can find it among the spiders,
please discard it as you are all the rest

as that was how
he would have wanted it
if he could have remembered
what wanting was.

what you recall about
the last time
someone said

“just be yourself
and you’ll be fine”
is that your first reaction was

“if I am myself
I am by definition
not at all fine;”

this was followed by 
a recognition
of how hard it was

to be someone
you didn’t know
all that well.

that said,
how do you know
that being yourself wouldn’t work

to heal you?
to bring you to life?
to tell yourself the truth?