it is not enough to gaze through the sycamore's
waving shadow leaves towards
summer stars,
or to listen to the crickets and the dog
down the valley,
or to feel the cool air- the scratchy grass
on her back.

it is not enough to lay mutely in wonder,
alone.

her thoughts wander to the house on
the hill- whose television flicker
can be seen miles away.

she blinks warmly and swallows.

her memories arise from crevises hidden
by day in the light of others' lurking intellects.
her memories arise and flit quietly through
an atmosphere of gentle aloneness until
that is not enough-
to dance in the cool twilight,
kingless and captainless.

the sea is not enough.
the rose is not enough.
the captain's stateroom is not enough.

empty, then, she reaches for a handful of
sky.  drawing herself up as though through
a window, she crawls into herself.

she crawls from her aloneness into her
own lap- the lap of the mother,
and it is enough.

lucy came to the high mountain cave where the
last dragon slept.
drawing her sword, she took aim at the
dragon's long throat,
then paused.

the dragon raised one sleepy eyelid and asked,
"why do you pause?"

lucy,
the renowned dragon-slayer,
slumped in her armour and
gazed into that monstrous eye.
she replied, "something is unright."

the two longed for something under
the surface of their skins that they
could not put words straight to.
finally, lowering her sword, lucy
asked, "why do you set fire to the cities?"

the great dragon raised her head now and
thought hard.  "i think," she said, "
"that i am angry at being locked up
in this cave all the time and when
i escape,
my fury gets the worser of me."

lucy looked round but saw no chains. 
"what keeps you here?"

the dragon smiled sadly and spoke,

"you do."

once upon a time there was a king
of the kingless country who defeated all
the host that rallied against him for
he was great in the arts of war and peace.

then, one day, an old man arrived from
a far off nation.  he smelled of decay and
looked like a corpse.  standing before
the king, he proposed a duel.
the king was astounded and protested,
but agreed when the old man wouldn't
back down.

for forty days they waged an unearthly
battle.  no matter how viciously or
brilliantly they fought, neither could
get the better of the other.
exhausted, the king was about to give
up when a stable boy stepped into
the courtyard and embraced the old man.

immediately, the old man seemed to reverse
in age.  soon the king stood face-to-face with
the spitting image of himself.

calm understanding enveloped the king.
as the two warriors engaged in fight once
more, the doppleganger thrusted at the king, but
instead of parrying, the king threw himself
into the thrust, piercing himself through.

both men vanished.

a great sycamore grew from that
spot.  it grew and grew and grew
until it came to shade the
whole of the land of the kingless country.

i know this feller whose favourite pastime is walkin through hay fields with his eyes shut. his wife tells me about how one time he was moseyin along like so and fell into the pond out back of mr. hyde's place. turns out he's graduated to blind-hiking in the forest hills. i asked him how the hell he avoids the trees and he said, "shit, andrew, you can see em if you look in the back of yer mind instead of the front." that's pretty cool, i thought, even though (or perhaps especially because) my name ain't andrew.

there is some strange attraction between our pains, a gravitation of fractures, a resonance of dissonance. your voices sing to me from the corner of every eye- asking for that sweet, listening devotion which i have had such trouble mustering. something was in the corner of my own eye, you see. but there is something beautiful to each voice and the whole and i can no longer help but listen. it wakes me up at night (my own voice there among many) and i feel wonder at this hymnal aloneness. and there is some deep attraction between our pains- some deep attraction that keeps us separate and turns our gaze into a searchlight scanning the dark horizon for the red cross. when the corpsman comes, panting with effort, and places morphine in the deep wounds of desire- when he comes by an effort of the eye and the heart- some deep magic works and where one answered, now are two. this is what i want, dear friend. see my scars? they match the pink curve of your own humanity. let's sit up all night, sipping tea and holding hands. why not escape the attraction of our pains and give each other what we all really want most.

aiden looks east to where the wildflowers bloom up on sandoval mountain, where the music of wind on rock fills the sky with some transparent sound. aiden looks east with hammer held mid-swing and listens. he takes a breath, slowly. a gap arises in the day- cracks in the matter have parted their lips, giving way to space. substance moves aside for a second to allow the wind to sing. then, it is not an emptiness parting something, but a moment parted not at all from the bird calls or the shifting tree shadows or the sound of vehicles down at the end of the driveway. aiden breathes out, slowly, and looks east to where wildflowers bloom- where the rocks and wind make contact.

and we are free and
whole
not unlike soil

not unlike a hanging pear
or an eaten acorn
or the way your lips form
not to the contour of these
words


but to the countour of
some song
underneath