Dark Matter

The stream leaves the pond
just above this spot,
rolls along picking up speed,
then comes to this plunge
of only a few feet.
It has cut a cold pool 
into the ground on its swift way
down and south.
I stop here and bathe my feet
in the stinging water, snow melt
on white sore skin.
When it’s been long enough,
when it becomes too much cold to bear,
I will dry off and re-don
my socks and boots
to continue following water
out of the mountains.

There is a story of how I got here
to the mountains this morning.
This isn’t it. There will be
a story of how I get
out of the mountains. This isn’t it
either, not yet. It’s not even
a story yet, no beginning, no end.  
It’s a pool cut into the ground
after a plunge of
a few feet. Enough, for now;
when it isn’t, it may become
part of a story about seeking
enough, perhaps about finding it.
Right now, though, 
the water’s cold

and it’s fine just as it is.

They pour a good beer there.
They have a good whisky.
They have low lights and highlights,
a big screen, small talk, regard for their patrons.
People go to the neighborhood bar
to plot revolution in the back booth.
They go to the neighborhood bar
to scheme for sex or connection.
They go to the neighborhood bar
to see themselves reflected.
They go to the neighborhood bar
to seek a knight or heroine.
They go to the neighborhood bar
to be with their people.
They go to the neighborhood bar
to avoid the other people.
They go to the neighborhood bar
to drink alone, to drink in pairs, to drink.
They go to the neighborhood bar
to wonder why they go to the neighborhood bar.
Nothing happens there that hasn’t happened
the night before the night before the night before.
So people go to the neighborhood bar
to hope for a different night or the same night
to happen for the first time or the last time
or this time once only or every time
at the neighborhood bar — a safe world
behind the neon sign and the butt bucket
full of sand and spit and remnants
outside the dark, kick-scarred door.
They pour a good beer there.
They have good whisky, clean glasses,
and nobody bothers you if you want to sit
and drink until closing, come back when it opens,
live there more or less until you don’t,
and when someone asks where you are
there’s a shrug and maybe soon enough
a memorial plaque, THIS STOOL RESERVED
FOR “YOUR NAME HERE”
goes on the bar rail
and after a week no one notices,
it gets busy, new people need a place —
go ahead and sit,
it’s a neighborhood bar,
people come and go.
Get you something? What you having?

Easily the greatest ending in history
was the one where you took my side
even though I was losing badly. Maybe

you did it for that reason, thought
you could save me, turn the tide —
I don’t know, but I do know

that when it became clear
that there was no way out of it for me,
you stayed when you could have gone,

and that is a comfort, although I am sorry
that it cost you so much, that they hounded you
into the dark and kept after you until

you probably perished out there
far from home and joy and safety.
You likely can’t hear this, won’t see it

ever.  It’s written on the same wind
that lifted and scattered my own
defeated bones. It’s all we two have

of that moment of furious and futile
strife and hope. I just needed it said:
you were an ally, you were a friend.

Even if we are forgotten, 
something of that loyalty
will endure; if it’s too much 

to hope for it to triumph
in the long term, it will still
have been worth the doing.

If I tell you that I was surprised to see
one ferret out of her cage
when I got home from shopping,
to find her strolling into the kitchen
to greet me, shoulder to shoulder
with the usually disdainful cat,
all because I’d left her cage partially open
by accident after filling her food bowl
an hour before, I will also have to tell you

of my complete lack of surprise when,
upon catching her and returning her
to the cage and latching it more securely,
I discovered her cage mate still sound asleep
in her hammock, apparently unaware 
both of her botched chance of an adventure
and of her sister’s wild hour on the loose
with the cat who, when all was done,
simply returned to her usual spot 
on top of the fridge and also
went to sleep. 

Somewhere in here is a metaphor 
and a moral and a meaning
that I should tease into a big statement
but I’m ready for a nap myself even though
I should work harder to escape
that kind of captivity, that sloth that holds me back
from deeper thought.  I ought not to be satisfied
with such a bald reporting of simple facts
but it’s all I’ve got for you — one ferret got free, 
one didn’t, the cat took it all in stride,
everyone’s asleep, all is forgotten,

and I’m fighting to stay awake,
to do my job — to keep killing myself
trying to make my life bigger
than it actually is.