Tuesday April 22, 2003: velocities more indefineable
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I walked out of work at a quarter till seven today and the sun was still light in the sky and the air, while not quite warm, had lost the bitter edge that it had this morning as I walked into work.
It was a beautiful early-spring day.
The feeling I get is indescribable. Things within me are loosening and shifting with the sun and the warmth, things opening that had been closed. I never realize how much I wrap up inside of myself during the winter until it's time for it all to loosen out and go away.
So I shake myself loose of the cold detritus of winter and start walking towards the sunlight. It's a long walk, but I remember the way.
Really, my life has fallen into a bit of a routine lately, and I'm not complaining. On the weekend, there's gaming and friends and usually the chance for some Kris Time, and during the week there is work and exercise and cooking and the provisioning of a daily life, the quiet heartbeat of time bringing me into the future.
This past weekend, we were all at Laura's house, and their new dog arrived. She was being adopted out by some people who couldn't keep her any more. I'd forgotten how much I like dogs, and this one is a particularly spectacular example of her species; she's all happy smiles and amusing ears and a deep and driving desire to play fetch.
I sat on the floor with her and petted her and she rolled over and let me scratch her tummy. Dogs are much like children for me; I like them, but I like them to belong to other people. I can give them back when they become trouble, that way. and I don't have to pay for them to go to college.
It's about the five-year anniversary of some very old, troubled times.
I am having trouble believing it's been five years. It feels like most of a lifetime ago, these reams of letters shut up in shoeboxes tied with string. Yet it feels like there isn't enough distance between I and the girl I was yet, the girl I fled from five years ago who I never wanted to be again.
I stood outside in the rain in late May of that year and promised that I would never again fear anyone else's strength. And I never really looked back. I never opened those shoeboxes, and I poured strength into myself until I was full and happy again.
Five years seems like a significant milestone. A quick stop along the way. A glance back into the cavern.
and we roll on into the night.
and, to finish out tonight, a couple of things from the time I was away:
velocity
(for Heather)
there is just something about
speed
80 mph
on a dark highway
in the middle of the night
calculating velocities
117 and a third feet per second
six inches from the concrete divider
seven miles from home
in the year of our lord 2002
41 days from the next year
30 days from the solstice
and I have just spent the evening with someone else's wife
laughing like lovers though we're not, not yet
and maybe will never be
but the arc of road echoes the things
I love best about her, and I am thinking
about the bridge, the bottom floating over the cold deep mud
eternal under the surface that occasionally
breaks right over the cars.
You sometimes need your wipers, driving here, even when it's fiercely sunny.
And there are velocities more indefineable:
the speed of laughter, how many feet
per second fear travels
whether love is fast or slow
and if it depends
on the location, time of year, and how quickly
the smiles shuffle along the sidewalk.
I am a quicksilver glacier. Hematite and mercury
different only in degree and here's me
liquid at room temperature, measuring
the want inside of me in milliliters,
the LD50 of the combination of my eyes crystal green
and my hands, long and white and soft
the space between hello
and the long last goodbye
and I am never forgotten. I'm not sure why.
heart-of-the-forest
you are
my lone pine tree
my white rock
my dragon in her lair
all things solitary, you are.
the grasses whisper your name
and the redwoods write your songs
in the secret spaces between their rings.
the entirety of the word bends its ear to you
stoops to the fragrance of your passing
wakes to your footsteps.
wakes to your footsteps and holds its breath as you pass.
the clouds themselves
bend their shoulders down
their magnificent white shoulders gleaming
their broad shining shoulders atremble
sweating mist under your regard.
The sky itself aches for your company
and is always denied, for you
desire not wings but roots
your great root
your fearsome taproot
stabbing into the blind soil
I would forsake all others
and you would enclose me
immortalize me in amber
and ten thousand years would pass
each moment slower than the one before
quick heart stilled in your slow blood.
and when we
wake
we are woken
each devoted cloud
will still remember
your name.
I walked out of work at a quarter till seven today and the sun was still light in the sky and the air, while not quite warm, had lost the bitter edge that it had this morning as I walked into work.
It was a beautiful early-spring day.
The feeling I get is indescribable. Things within me are loosening and shifting with the sun and the warmth, things opening that had been closed. I never realize how much I wrap up inside of myself during the winter until it's time for it all to loosen out and go away.
So I shake myself loose of the cold detritus of winter and start walking towards the sunlight. It's a long walk, but I remember the way.
Really, my life has fallen into a bit of a routine lately, and I'm not complaining. On the weekend, there's gaming and friends and usually the chance for some Kris Time, and during the week there is work and exercise and cooking and the provisioning of a daily life, the quiet heartbeat of time bringing me into the future.
This past weekend, we were all at Laura's house, and their new dog arrived. She was being adopted out by some people who couldn't keep her any more. I'd forgotten how much I like dogs, and this one is a particularly spectacular example of her species; she's all happy smiles and amusing ears and a deep and driving desire to play fetch.
I sat on the floor with her and petted her and she rolled over and let me scratch her tummy. Dogs are much like children for me; I like them, but I like them to belong to other people. I can give them back when they become trouble, that way. and I don't have to pay for them to go to college.
It's about the five-year anniversary of some very old, troubled times.
I am having trouble believing it's been five years. It feels like most of a lifetime ago, these reams of letters shut up in shoeboxes tied with string. Yet it feels like there isn't enough distance between I and the girl I was yet, the girl I fled from five years ago who I never wanted to be again.
I stood outside in the rain in late May of that year and promised that I would never again fear anyone else's strength. And I never really looked back. I never opened those shoeboxes, and I poured strength into myself until I was full and happy again.
Five years seems like a significant milestone. A quick stop along the way. A glance back into the cavern.
and we roll on into the night.
and, to finish out tonight, a couple of things from the time I was away:
velocity
(for Heather)
there is just something about
speed
80 mph
on a dark highway
in the middle of the night
calculating velocities
117 and a third feet per second
six inches from the concrete divider
seven miles from home
in the year of our lord 2002
41 days from the next year
30 days from the solstice
and I have just spent the evening with someone else's wife
laughing like lovers though we're not, not yet
and maybe will never be
but the arc of road echoes the things
I love best about her, and I am thinking
about the bridge, the bottom floating over the cold deep mud
eternal under the surface that occasionally
breaks right over the cars.
You sometimes need your wipers, driving here, even when it's fiercely sunny.
And there are velocities more indefineable:
the speed of laughter, how many feet
per second fear travels
whether love is fast or slow
and if it depends
on the location, time of year, and how quickly
the smiles shuffle along the sidewalk.
I am a quicksilver glacier. Hematite and mercury
different only in degree and here's me
liquid at room temperature, measuring
the want inside of me in milliliters,
the LD50 of the combination of my eyes crystal green
and my hands, long and white and soft
the space between hello
and the long last goodbye
and I am never forgotten. I'm not sure why.
heart-of-the-forest
you are
my lone pine tree
my white rock
my dragon in her lair
all things solitary, you are.
the grasses whisper your name
and the redwoods write your songs
in the secret spaces between their rings.
the entirety of the word bends its ear to you
stoops to the fragrance of your passing
wakes to your footsteps.
wakes to your footsteps and holds its breath as you pass.
the clouds themselves
bend their shoulders down
their magnificent white shoulders gleaming
their broad shining shoulders atremble
sweating mist under your regard.
The sky itself aches for your company
and is always denied, for you
desire not wings but roots
your great root
your fearsome taproot
stabbing into the blind soil
I would forsake all others
and you would enclose me
immortalize me in amber
and ten thousand years would pass
each moment slower than the one before
quick heart stilled in your slow blood.
and when we
wake
we are woken
each devoted cloud
will still remember
your name.
