Those Old Crickets

We look intently back on the paths we’ve walked.

You on yours and I on mine.

Sometimes intersecting, sometimes near,

But more often than not the journeys have drifted to the poles,

Scurrying apart as the gravity of,

Space and time and ego,

Brought brevity to our shared experience.

But here we are.

Now.

Now. An ever expanding moment in creation.

And as the crickets chirp,

The me who was, is not the me who is,

And the pain and the wounds won’t hold me,

And the hurt and the regret won’t hold you,

And we live and we laugh,

And we bathe in the chorus of the insects,

As their wings breathe life into our humble bones,

Our irreverent lungs,

Our beating, pulsing hearts,

That bleed loss, love, and redemption.

What’s given cannot be taken,

We share these shoes, these shores, these shackles,

And we won’t be shaken.

The creatures of the grass,

They squeak, peep and twitter as we bravely move forward.

Together.

Those old crickets chirp.

And we move forward.

Those old crickets chirp and we old souls walk,

Beneath the leaves and moss and the never ending night sky.

Never hoping,

Never daring,

To look back.

Before You, There Was No Me

I’ve made a recent discovery that has shaken me to the core.

It’s as if my soul is a mattress and the universe a child,

Eagerly jumping on me for the first time,

Relishing every bounce, every shake, every vibration,

Evoking in me all beautiful emotions capable of being felt by a human,

Sensations that I cannot begin to name,

Feelings that history has not yet deemed capable of description,

Let alone designation.

The breakthrough is simply this:

Before you, there was no me.

This is not meaningless symbolism,

Or existential metaphor that attempts to articulate a half realized truth.

As surely as the deer will liberate it’s burdened head from it’s crown of bones,

As surely as the glorious sun will grow weary as the days become old,

As surely as the heart in my chest beats only to the rhythm of yours,

Surely I tell you:

Before you, there was no me.

The feeble fragments of my wild, aimless being tried to find a home,

Like a blind albatross, migrating west,

Pointlessly yearning for the warmth of destiny,

But the clouds, and the mountains, and the bottles, and the ash,

They held me captive,

Incarcerating me for twenty four years,

With promises of totality and providence,

But no matter how many hills were climbed,

Or valleys crossed,

Or flags raised on global soil,

The fullness of my uniqueness could not be realized on it’s own.

Surely I tell you:

Before you, there was no me.

Now we share life, and life shares us.

We are perfectly imperfect, you and I,

Calm or storm, meadow or desert.

A wholeness discovered once in a lifetime,

A new breath, a new tune, a new element yet to be discovered by man.

Because of you I’ve found completion,

Because of you I’ve found purpose, calling, strength, and peace.

Because of you I’ve found life.

Because of you, I’m unbroken.

And no natural law on earth or in the heavens can move me.

Now that I’ve found you, I know who I am.

Surely I tell you:

Before you there was no me.

Surely I tell you:

We will walk steadfast,

Arm in arm,

Hand in hand,

To the edge of eternity.

One Too Many

I often wonder what it would be like

to raise a child on bourbon alone.

Forsaking the nipple,

With its preconceived human experience,

Sinister,

In it’s ploy to create like-mindedness,

Oneness,

Conformity.

The breast is a goddamm communist,

Red in every aspect of it’s productivity,

Man doesn’t need to blacklist the human body

To uncover it’s allegiances.

To raise a child on bourbon alone.

It seems natural anyway,

If you think about it,

The bourbon barrel is a womb,

Dark and damp,

The wooden uterus lined

With all sorts of

Mystical growth,

And magical processes,

The corn and mash gestating to

Form new life,

Too supernatural in nature

To fully comprehend.

God made bourbon same as He made women.

Seems right anyway.

It could be the greatest

advance in medicine to

ever occur.

Children reared on the bottle,

Not the plastic kind,

Of course,

It could turn the universe

Right side up.

Hell, we could raise a generation of

Boys and girls with

Morals and fortitude,

And Sainthood in their bones.

To raise a child on Bourbon alone.

It seems so simple now,

The antidote to all sickness,

The solution to all evil,

The salvation of ----

I know.

I know, Lucille, I can hear you!

Guess I’ll put this lowball down,

Take out the trash,

And wonder on it some more.