Is something on your mind?
I completed a task my boss
Asked me to perform.
I put fibers of my being
Into the thing
And could not sleep
Till it was done.Who is your boss? What is her name?
She is a wind out of Texas,
A force of her own creation,
With legs like thick oaks
And a girth as wide as the world.
Her name is Bella
And she resembles my mother.What state are you in now?
I am in the pain it was mine to experience
Given the unbearable closeness
The finished deed has wrought.
She has praised me in a way
That offers only poison as its legacy.Can you explain?
I am in the room my mother would call me to
When childhood was mine. I am in the place
Of apartness where we went behind the locked door
With meadows in the distance
To bask in the glow of my stellar report card.
I am in parks and in towns
And on streets without names
But always I am with her
In the goodness mode
She established in my internal apparatus.Will you be all right? Should we call for assistance?
I will be one with myself
When my bearings are gained
Separate from her person and I can
Open the door now closed to begin
My journey to a destination I’m not sure of.Describe it for us. Try.
It has a high cliff looking down
On a foaming sea
And places for warm tea.
It has boulevards where the old
Who lack means
Are blown about
On icy streets
By winter winds.
It has terrifying depths
And the superficial majesty of heights.
It has paths that come to an end
But leave you in sight of others
And the stray newspapers
Everyone in the fall of his life
Learns to ignore
And sophisticated offerings
That will leave you speechless.
Mostly it has prayer every hour on the hour,
The exhortation to enter the inner space
Where your hope is to be found.July 2004