Except
More conscious each day
of each everyday, I pray I
will release them more easily
than I released the kind of loving
that is only returned when it has
been returned. This is the most
difficult of lessons to reconcile.
How to set loose a gladness
you can’t believe will be found
anywhere until you begin to
believe there’s a joy to be found
just spotting the axolotl in its
native habitat in the Valley of
Mexico; in the delicate & meaty,
iced, or pickled oyster; the shock
of Judy Collins’ prescient “Pretty
Polly.” It is then consciousness
becomes what it is meant to
be: wonderment and thunderbolt,
audacious stupefaction even if
only in twinklings. Which is fine.
Which is all we can ask of our
privilege: to walk, with bare feet,
through bluegrasses, knowing,
understanding, what sweetnesses
these will be to surrender. Except
for mint, chamomile, thyme; except
for the inedible pith of passion fruit
that will obsess us even as we return
to cool ground. Indefatigable ghosts.
