Unplug me
Then plug me back in.
Reset me back to a previously functioning state.
I’ve been running version 2.0
For the past 20,000.0 years
And it’s gotten quite buggy.
The day before that
Was the last day we were on course true.
I’m standing in the cornfield
In my virtual Kansas
Waiting in my foil cap
Emblazoned with the logo
Of my hometown team.
I never made varsity
Which turns out to be my possible salvation.
I can follow my story tree
All the way back to the day before
It all went wrong.
You know, you were there too.
Our roots go deep
Where we once were anchored.
So back in Kansas
I dig my feet in
I’m done with the dance
And am waiting for lightning to strike
Knowing no other way
To let go
To reset
To gain course
To make amends
As the wind whistles her telling-tune
Called, “I Told You
So.”
I feel weak and out of sorts.
Maybe it’s the winter wind that haunts the nearby trees?
It moves me to desperation.
Something lacking in my snacking?
And out of desperation
I eat chocolate cake.
Modern science knows only a little about its healing
properties.
But long-gone astrologers will tell you of its potential.
The Aztecs believed that cacao seeds were the gift of Quetzalcoatl.
Dutch mystics rendered it into cacao
butter and added sugar.
And wonderbaar!
It’s probably why people often say “Oh, my
god!”
After a forkful of German chocolate cake.
Chocolate is often part of holy day
rituals.
Ever nibble the ears of a chocolate bunny?
Or eat the gold foil wrapped coins of Hanukkah
money?
Show me the gelt!
The Swiss also belong in the pantheon of chocolate deities.
Nothing neutral about that flavor.
Lob sei, Toblerone!
I’m hoping that the cake will return me back to “in
sorts.”
A culinary cure of sorts.
Meanwhile, what would really be good with chocolate cake
Is a scoop of ice cream.
“What flavor,” you say?
Come on now…
Hey,
I hope you’re having a good day.
What is a good day?
A good day is the first steps you take
In a new pair of sneakers
(and extra good if you have new
socks!)
A good day is making someone laugh out
loud
Who has been locked up in a prison of
pain.
A good day is seeing a kid
Make baby steps of success.
A good day is feeling the warm sun on
your cheek
On a cold January day.
A good day is catching a golden leaf
That a maple tree has dropped to you.
A good day is
Finding your keys
A warm cookie
A wink and a nod.
A good day my friend
Is waiting for you.
A cat passes by here
On some sort of regular patrol,
Black with white boots,
She seems to prowl in the unregulated territories.
And I wish to ask her
“What do you know?”
For I think that she could answer
Though she chooses to keep to herself.
Run silent run deep?
Reticence is her pedagogy…
That may be the better way to go.
Other creatures have answers,
The wisdom of wings
Furbearers foresight
but they seemed skeptical
And
reluctant to share them.
Humans have stories
That explain our stories,
But our bullshit masks many
Of our creature canon
-we once knew
better-
And might still know now
If we listened.
Ask a cat what it knows of the sparrow
And what the sparrow knows of the cat;
Truths are to be found in the unregulated territories.
I have stumbled along
Taken many a misstep
(And in falling down
sometimes
I have been placed perfectly)
And found my way
Miraculously, to this very day
-Gifted by kindness
Gifted by forgiveness,
And generous secrecy
And the mere passage of time,
Such a generous keeper
and merciful mentor-
That I might nearly know
Where to put my next step.
I could take you to a beach nearby..
There is a two mile walk along a pulsing estuary
In order to earn your visit.
It is no great sacrifice.
Where the beach begins
There is a rocky outcrop;
It anchors the sand and dunes at one end.
At the far end,
Keeping its tenuous grip on a small mound of land
A tombolo, worthy of a barefoot walk.
The beach smiles up some nights
Mirroring the crescent moon.
At the start of the beach
To the right of the outcrop
Is a great swath of slipper shells.
And though the beach lies alluringly ahead
This mound of mollusks
Now empty husks
Rattles in the waves,
Calling even the casual passer;
A boy with a bucket, a girl with a dog
To stop for a moment (or an hour)
And lose themselves in this spectacle.
Playing the role of the boy
I pick up a shell,
Smooth and cool
Like a hard boiled egg split lengthwise
Well-formed and intact.
One of many.
Is this what millions looks like?
And as if this shell could converse
I say out loud,
“You made this case,
And this case made you.”
From beach to pocket to nearby window sill,
This shell, my friend, still speaks to me,
And shares itself so generously.
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