process

I feel that the best I have right now is just the things sort of spilling out of my brain. It's not tidy or revised. I'm processing a lot so it's just where I am.  And so much of the time it's dark and hard, and so often I don't write at all because all I have is dark and hard. But I'm trying to shed light on the dark and hard. And you have allowed me to do that. To be where I am, and I have allowed you to see where I am. So. In the words of Milosz:
To begin where I am.

-------
it's corrosion

this slow death 

under the surface

rotting out like water-logged 

wooden beams of the dock at the lake-

its algae covered legs giving out after

one too many joyful leaps

one too many years of mucilage and fish shit

one too many high tides.

It’s not quite like the death of an animal thing,

it’s not visceral

not like road kill:

something shockingly alive

breathing heavily the air fresh from 

the roadside grasses and nettle

living courageously in small ways

and then

with a frightening flash of crushing pain,

gone forever.

So maybe it’s something like

a perennial

blowing out its last breath of summer

before the first cold night of the year.

Do they expect it?

Do they wait for it, patiently, calmly, inviting the Fall?

Do they know they live?

Do they know

they will curl up and slump to the ground

to decay into the earth

and become atoms to nurture next Spring’s crocus?

Do they know they live?

Do they know the sound of a deer approaching?

but it is cyclic

and natural, whether there is instinct involved or not.

whether there is knowing

or not.           

Would it be better to not know?

To just flare up

like a flame burning down

a fiber wick and can’t see how much wax is left to go?

And honestly, doesn’t care one bit.

Not knowing why or where you came from,

what you’re doing or where you’re going. Just

charging full force ahead doing the one thing you

know how to do

until slowly

at first,

then there’s

less and less

wax to feed the hunger,

less and less

atoms

to nurture that

little red ember until

with a tender

glow

and a tendril wisp

no sound to announce your passing,

silently

you are just gone.