Laying It Down 10/24/09

What is my life, my face?
Sometimes they weary me
just as the lives of others and other things weary me.
My house is a mess.
Things drop and lay there for months.
What does it matter?
Things are like leaves,
destined to fall,
to blow away,
to be absorbed,
to mutate,
and become dirt for the trees
to make more leaves.

What is this life
that I keep hammering on?
Adding a 2x4,
repainting the weathered wood.
Whose hands are these,
so busy?
Whose face is this,
smiling, frowning?
Does it laugh?
I'm sure it must.
Does it know grief?
I'm sure it does.
Does it like jazz,
and Paul Klee,
and Rilke?
Yes, and these are the yeast of me.
and I am the least of them,
and destined to become less,
and yet on the scales, we balance,
for now.

What is this life, my face?

Where others touch, I blossom.
And now, still and alone,
I blossom.
Oh, the green fuse that drives the flower.
How helpless we are.
How it plays us,
and then, oh, how we play ourselves.
What is this face, this flesh,
that I would lay them down with the leaves?
Who is this man, confused and
confusing , frustrated and
frustrating, enchanted and
enchanting, difficult,
trying, trying to be good.

More 2x4s, more paint!
The artifice sags, the man grows weary.
What is this life, this face?

Somertimes I would like to lay them down:
Let the late autumn winds
burst my doors and windows ,
sweep through this house of me,
pulling me into the whirlwind,
carrying me out
to meet the sunlight, the clouds,
the mist and rain,
the leaves and lamps,
shirts and shovels,
dust, sticks, feathers...
and me.
And then to lay them down,
element melting into element.
"Blend well and allow to cool"
says Autumn to Winter,
whilst the heat of me
dons a suit of leaves.

There are some processes
only poetry can describe.
This is one of them.

What is my face, this life?
The work of old age
is figuring out how
to lay it down,
and laying it down.
And what of this age?