A reconciliation between
inner and outer storms comes
during a walk in early spring,

first warm day in a winter while,
pushing too warm for
these clothes; princess pine

beginning to push past
the winter leaves toward
long missed late day sun.

Stopped on the path by the sight
of a wide spray of fallen oak leaves splayed
upon the softly crumbled trunk

of a tree — not their source, one that itself fell years
before, its surface riddled now with ant-roads,
its flesh chewed and weathered nearly into sand.

The light upon the leaves bleaches them
to a pale brown. No doubt brittle to the touch
from death, but from here they look like

a snap shot of banners or kerchiefs
flying in a brisk wind — image from
a pageant, renaissance fantasy; then

I shake myself free, let nature be free
of my interpretation — layers here of past
becoming slowly, unstoppably new;

one more step and into view comes
more princess pine, green rising
by the side of and fed by the rotten trunk.

You know, at least half
of the people you see are not
people, he says. And it’s not
like you’ll ever understand
the difference — no glasses
can help with that, it’s not like
that movie which only got it
a little right, mostly wrong. I’m
never sure. Not even about you.
I work it out in my head and the clues
don’t add up to certainty. The guy
at the convenience store, he’s not
one of them. Lets me use the bathroom
if I need it. I have to do him now and then
in return, you know what I’m saying?
That makes me sure he’s a human.
A man’s man for a man, you know?
That old this for that, that old scratch
each other’s itch. I’m not sure
you’re real — you never ask for
anything, just hand over a dollar
when you have one to offer. It’s good
to see you here. God bless,
even if you are one of the ones.
I’m not sure about you. God bless.

To ingest cannabis when life
is apparently free of obligation
is to examine the word “obligation”
as it it were a spear pointed at your time.

Some of us can stand there
in front of the spear,
see it coming clearly,
then duck away with little consequence.

Others simply
catch the spear in both hands
before it can wound,
and fulfill what’s been thrust upon them.

I am neither.
I am of a different group,
those who will automatically step
from the spear’s merely projected path

unless they fear that they can not
avoid it — and if
they can not avoid it,
they do not partake.

This may feel like
trivial information
to you. If so you do not see
in this one small fact

how much of a life
may be ruled by a sense of
obligation as
unavoidable danger

and of even
potential pleasure
as a place
of near-certain death.

If I am a temple, I’m tired enough
that the censers won’t light, broken enough
that the congregation fears a collapse,
soft enough that my gospels dissolve on delivery.

If I am a garden, I’m soft enough
to be tilled and planted, tired enough
not to care that it hurts, broken enough that
what is sown might not grow.

If I am a boat, I’m broken enough
to be an accidental submarine,
soft enough to sink slowly, tired enough
to lie on the welcome bottom until I’m gone.

Tired, soft, broken.
No one is supposed to wake up
this way — alive, awake, refreshed;
those are the preferred words.
Nonetheless, I use tired, soft,
and broken because this
is how I begin year 62.

Remember the first book
that ever turned you on
to how you wanted to live
forever after? Do you recall
the letdown when you learned
how wrong it was about how
a life should be lived?

That day when you learned
there are more things
in heaven and earth
than have been contained
in your literature,
when you saw the author
as a monster or worse,
a human; that day when you
put the book aside and said,

it’s my turn to step up and be
star-blessed with wisdom earned
through disappointment. My turn
to write the book that will disappoint
another one at some future time.

I’m reading it now
and I’m not disappointed as you were,
though I can feel how strongly
you reacted to that first devastation —

so much is contained in your literature
that I’ve just abandoned my faith
in my heaven and earth to live
in yours for the moment, turning pages,
fingers crossed, silently praying:
don’t screw it up.