Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Crossing the Line


Some people say it was wrong what we did, they say we should not have buried him that way, in that place. They locked me up for it, mostly because they said I was honoring the wrong things. But you have to do the right thing sometimes, even if it means breaking the rules, even the ones you used to live by. He knew that. He lived free as anyone I ever seen and he wanted to rest free too. No fenced-in cemetery for him. But I still have to wonder about his kids and wife and family back in Kentucky and how they will feel not knowing where he rests. That's on my shoulders now. Seems like everything that happens has some kind of consequence. This one has many. Mainly that I have to live with myself. It's worst at night. Then I wake up sweating because the old voices are beating on me. Then some judge in my head is banging his gavel on his desk, yelling "Guilty as charged!" If he didn't break the rules himself, I wouldn't have known how to. He told me to throw all that garbage that I had in my head out and to pay attention to what you see with your own eyes, what you know in your own heart. Got to free yourself he said. It was all about the here and now and finding the energy in things. You can try to avoid it he said, but it will always be there, waiting, calling, whispering. He said you could tell what was wrong and right because you knew it somewhere other than the rules. But you had to work at it. Work hard, harder than anything you ever did in your life. And you had to want it, like someone who is drowning wants a breath of air right before he gives in to breathing water. The crap in my head has to be rooted out and replaced with what I know to be true he said. And I have to give it him. He never told me what to think. Just said keep looking. That did change things I have to admit. And I started to feel more alive but also got into trouble when I stopped bowing to the bullshit that most people live by. Now I have nothing against people who play by the rules. They get something for doing that. It's just not where the live wire of time and space hangs out. Here in prison I see it in the way guys talk when they get a hair cut or look out over the wire toward the mountains. The sky sometimes can break your heart. It can be a kind of blue-green, like ocean water, and it glows there, behind the razor wire. Yeah, it was wrong, but sometimes wrong is the right way to get at the core of things. You got to pull away the covers, the dead skin, to get at the fresh stuff, again and again. After a while the old scared voices start to settle down. They get quieter as time goes on, as the work progresses. 

1 comment:

  1. "... I see it in the way guys talk when they get a hair cut or look out over the wire toward the mountains. The sky sometimes can break your heart."
    Piece gives a powerful image of both longing and conviction, thanks for writing.

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