nothing

Road Dancing

On the walk with passersby
Old and familiar friends gather
Performing the rite, shared for years
In and out of friendship, bells ringing

Our common purpose, now an end itself
Moving the same shoes in and out of love
Before the children, now when flowers bloom,
Now when the dried spores are cast to the wind

Over the hill and under the influence
Missing our same notes...........again
capers not landing softly with the years
Always an up with the back, an in with the out

The air was chilly and clear in the fall of 1989 as I sauntered through the green grass of a business park-turned-fair, hand in hand with my one true love. Glad to be sharing the moment and grateful that she was not afraid to participate in such things that other people might find embarassing. I sat with her watching a show, not knowing what it was I was truely seeing: Some wacky dancers making fools of themselves, stumbling over their stage patter, bumping into one another, and amazingly managing not to drop their sticks. If I could have looked with my older eyes, I would have seen.........The oddest bunch of people I have ever met, some of my dearest and truest friends, friends in whom I alternately delight and loathe, an undue amount of marital drama (oh thou black kettle!), traveling to other countries, altered states, more pints of ale than I would have otherwised imagined, Melodions, forcing the sun to rise (usually through the fog), twisted knees and ankles, love, not love, uh....love, not love again, more pints of ale, and before you know it.....part of my history. Why? Why did I turn the corner that day? What made me do it? One day I'm on a date watching a show, and before I know it, it is sixteen years later and I am looking at actual preserved dead bodies in a museum with someone's Aunt Esther. How does something like that happen? And it makes me wonder what corners I am rounding today of which I am unaware.

I look behind and see a long road but...........I swear it wasn't there when I started out.

The Long Second

An old shoe knows where to go
How to wrap around your foot
Like a thousand times before

An old belt knows your curves
One hole wider than the rest
A snake knows its path home

An old hand knows its face
Trusted palm cradling your smile
Angela of Foligno knows

Only in the strange church do we let ourselves go
Leaving by separate doors, we dissapear
No longer seeing, but not forgetting
Something in our eyes has changed
The light between them stretches like a thread
Accross the bridge
We don't speak of the bridge
We don't step near it

When will we cross that bridge in the light of a calm afternoon?