on the mountain light in mid-fall
but it’s still warm enough even on
misty mornings for shirtsleeves
at least for an hour alone
and at lunch I still sit outside
trying to write a poem
that explains why drummers
and cooks
enjoy cannabis so much
in part for the way it re-moves from us
the deep metronym of time
we sense at all time
as a friend or as a panther
stalking us as we lead
whatever it is we lead from the rear
Listening to Ram Dass
describe his progress through
India
From Dr. Albert in the LandRover full of pharmaceuticals
to nobody
to the son remembering his mother the night before
meeting his guru
who lives on two glasses of milk a day
generating his own himalayan heat
and who ingested 900 micrograms of LSD
as you and might eat an orange
wondering how much an orange costs
on Kauai these days
as I cross the French Broad and come to
the cliff that lets me know...

Reflections on There Will Be Blood
What Happens on Main St.
Is real.
Unless you are on Wall St.
But what does that matter to clamshells, casinos, and linen paper?

Faith is the virtual reality.
Information is the specie.
Or, maybe, it’s the other way ‘round?

In the catholic telling of the Passion
Toward the end of the trail of tears.
Simon of Cyrene lifts the Cross
At this point really just a 12-foot railroad tie,
From the back of Yeshua of Nazarene.
or Jesus (of Home Depot),

or George (of Minneapolis) if you prefer, it couldn’t matter less
To the story.

I remember when I first began to do battle
with the demons my walk through the garden borne
Driving to a rustic church in the next town over,
On a Saturday morning.
That featured, not a mural, or a window, or a statue,
just a simple postcard of this scene in the nave.

This ordinary scene of humanity and divinity
Two guys lifting a heavy, pressure-treated, cypress log on an ordinary Thursday morning.
To build a church
In which, one day,
I might, if not exactly worship,
At least notice and perhaps, confess my sins
Whispering the greatful burning desire of another to help
...

I saw two wagons bracketed in a blackberry winter squall
Turning midnight into mad scramble
Torches guttering

Crossing the bald plain of two mountains
Ladled with cakes and beer
For the child in your belly
Not so gently waiting to be born.
The axle broke, the stern reefed on unseen stone,
Repaired by pig iron and blown branches slick with rain.
And I,
Become dream-minded, mid-wife to the expectation and the celebration.

I do not know where to hold such Nation
Dreams
So far quarantined from my wheelhouse of chip, transistor,
And modem
Awoke again to evidence of ancient storms
I’ve not spoken to you in months.
I’ve seen nothing of this seventh generation child rounding you now.
For all I know he is already flying free against your acrobat hip.
Easy borne and drinking from your breast now
I’ve not sipped beer, nor supped cakes since the Indians of Mardi Gras
Exchanged krewes...

Water on the tongue.
Bread in the belly.
The love of those who misunderstand
The understanding of self
And nonself.
The seeing around corners that allows
Rockets red glare.
The Flag and all who stand there
The laying down of all these
Needful things
To slip into currents of clear mid-year water
Returning to the womb
From which we rise.

The news out of Minneapolis this morning has my heart sick, my mind angry, and my body reaching for my copy of The Fire Next Time.
I do not have an answer, and I am so, so tired reading of another American family weeping over the body of its son. A city in flames understandably so. This is well over the thousandth killing of an unarmed American this year.
Twice have I been chained. Once I have been under the gun of the police. Never have the authorities attempted to violate the privilege of my skin to the point of death. They wouldn’t dream of it. I am under no illusions that this is a privilege, an accident of birth. I am an American. I am as African as the first man.
I am a man.

This cannot continue.

I am glad the FBI is growing more involved. I am glad that we are paying a little more attention. I am glad the rights and positions of the killers are under arrest. I am glad...

I don’t have a dream in my heart this morning. Only the mist of visions.

The consensus reality is unlike anything I have experienced in any of my lifetimes. An existential crisis without end. A shadow war with no front, no rear, only a broad strong back.

With the Great Recession, we had an event and recovery. Same with 9/11.
With the Gulf War, we were, even in a rapidly fracturing democracy, able to influence events, to a certain extent, through action.

Now we must influence events through inaction, which is not an operation human doings are evolutionarily, biologically, or culturally programmed for. We must simply be.
And, once again, we are signaling our allegiance with death. Especially the death of the voiceless.

We are, once again, reminded of the Oneness of all things and it frightens us.

And here, so close to the Socoian Southern Appalachian leyline, perched pineboards in...

You must think.
You are not Superman. Yet.
Gotta serve Something.
You’re not an island.
Mama loves you.
Rest when you are tired. Eat when you’re hungry.
“Goddamit, babies you gotta be kind.”

My friend Taylor said something profound a while ago, “I used to think coffee was the adult beverage. Then I thought alcohol that is the adult beverage. Now I realize that water, water is the adult beverage.”

This is especially true if you put orange peel in it and serve it in a beer tulip.
Or maybe I am still growing up.

The storm washed the windows clean.
And I feel clean myself.
I want to sink into a woman.
Feel her squeeze and stutter around me exploding into light before returning to satisfied slumber as the sun rises, while I quietly adorn her temple in sweet dark tea, fried eggs and oranges. Son House or Otis Redding drifting over the dusty record player.

Too bad we are quarantined.

I wonder as the whites crackle to brown edges, what late youth would have rendered if I watered my roots with the Quakers.

Had made my way back to Celo offering honest love for honest labor.

I think of Rachel.
When we are free to travel over the mountain.
I’ll sit in companionable meetinghouse silence with Friends, barefoot, mud from Hannah Branch caking between our toes.