Sand and Salt Spray

Is it a waste of time, all this tinkering, arranging, and hopeful word wrangling? Some say redemption from it is possible. Others say the way is wordless, beyond these tiny, self-generating miracles of thought and sound. Others say they are more reality than reality, whatever that is. You can't know a thing without them they say. Power they say. The raw material of self they say. We are made of water and words and sand and wind-borne salt spray. They are a bridge across the roiling seas of chaos they say, the story that takes you to the other side. I say they are both particle and wave, ephemeral, all that remains when the body is long gone. They are what we leave for those who follow, folly though they might be.

Once a Week

You put life on hold, in a box, up in storage on a shelf. You label it so you remember where you might pick up where you left off before you stepped out and through the perimeter marked by spools or razor wire. You have to travel there with only your wits and words. Everything else gets left at the gate. You are just a visitor, but even visitors feel stripped for a time. The place puts you inside yourself, makes you ask what you are doing, why you do it, and teases you with what you might do when you get out. That's the big question, one that makes survival possible. A human might starve here, slowly. The death comes on like concrete curing. You might turn to stone if you don't force blood into the extremities, the ones capable of remembering life outside the wire, what it might be if only you were there.

Kickin' It Before the Door Closes

The days are getting warmer and the university let us all go for a week of chill before the final push to the semester tape. The gift of time meant I could catch up on some long-neglected house projects, or rather one big project: re-build the shambles of an overhang in the back yard. Only this time I had to do it right. Cue up the anxiety about not knowing exactly what to do. How to hang a ledger board where the wall was crumbling adobe, a tangle of conduits, vents, drains, supplies, and rotten wood, along with the water heater exhaust and things underground like rocks, water lines, and monsters all took over my nights and kept me tossing, turning, wound up in knots. Oh well. Suck it bro, I said, on my way to Home Depot, Ace Hardware, and advice from YouTube. Pedal to the metal and keep moving, Buckwheat, I said. Days on a ladder are numbered and I get one more chance to breathe while my little world comes crashing down. I find comfort in the help of family and friends. With them, the little structure has taken form and might actually keep water from destroying all the tools I keep underneath. I know I can't do this work by myself. The trust fall has begun.

Drastic Measures

You dance your heart out, squeezing the last nugget of gift out of the sincerest part of you. You offer it up with no strings attached. And what happens? Nothing. They take what you give and close the doors, the windows, and turn their backs on you. Such a life you think, standing there utterly alone with nothing left to sustain you. Now what? Well you take drastic measures, that's what. Shave your head and get some piercings, some tattoos, and a tilt toward hipness. If you can't beat 'em. Or not. Some of us just play our music to no applause. Dumb innocence earns nothing. Only the cynic will talk to you now. 

Anger Issues

He sat there, snug as a bug, bottled-up, bulging with sedentary calories. I think he's got anger issues he said with a small flourish of his hand, a kind of touche in this meeting to decide another man's fate. His eyes were buried in his cheeks and looked like they were about to explode. He is not one of us his eyes said. Us and them. Anger issues he said again in case we hadn't heard him. At least he expresses his feelings I thought to myself. You are a bomb waiting to go off I thought, a white-man-in-a-suit IED. It's all about control with you I thought. You spot it you got it I thought. You see yourself as protecting us from feelings I thought. You keep a lid on it, run a wall through it, never showing your light while punishing others for showing theirs.

Over Here. Over There.

Over here we drive in climate-controlled comfort, have so much food we throw away about half of it, leave our estates to cats. Over there they hide in basements to avoid barrel bombs, pray for water if the chlorine gas drifts in, and are lucky to have bread. There are no pets. Over here we live for entertainment and worship our gods of the screen. Over there they hope children get to live one more day. Over here it's money. Over there heat for cooking. Over here we worry about wrinkly skin and get massages when we feel anxious. Over there they operate without anesthesia or electric lights. We struggle to decide which outfit to wear over here. They want a bullet-proof vest and helmet so they can better remove rubble covering trapped innocents. The sound of a jet means travel here. There rockets, explosions. Over here we want the best and most beautiful. Over there surviving is a dream. Over here, over there. Just location, location. That, and luck, or lack thereof. If you were over there, what would you like to say to someone over here? 

What Is It That Keeps You Awake In the Silence?

What is it that steals your peace in the deepest dark of night? What is it that leaves you there staring at the ceiling fan, a skein of snakes in your heart and mind? Is it all that is leaving you, that you want to hang onto, to hold like a dragon sitting on gold in his stony lair? Is it the weakness taking over, the one you know when you climb stairs or lift a board that you wish you could nail in place? Is it the loss of balance? Now, you catch yourself, or even fall when caught by surprise. Is it the word that you can't quite recall, the one that is perfect for what you want to say right now? Is it all that you will never achieve because the means have left you? Is it your aching gratitude for all you have been given? Or is it everything -- the dark nights, the days brimming with joy, the peace of rolling, the taste of raspberries, of salt, drops running down a frosted tumbler of dark beer, the tears of rage at the unfairness? All of it is what you must surrender as the light of you grows dim. Is that it?