We fall like leaves here –

Swept up by winds 

Of remembrance that bear us away.

We do not think about our trees, bear of bark,

Left by us to blister in the sun.

We are too stubborn for our season.

We avert our eyes from the rising ground,

Turned an early brown, it is 

Hard and uninviting.

We only know those who fall like us,

Loving only this last opportunity

To avoid compounding our grief with solitude.

The wind seems cruel, 

Until that architect of our destruction,

Emerges as our unwitting savior!

We are all tossed about the same,

though our height and directions vary.

We know only one comfort:

We are here, and not alone.

Here, at last, in the Holy Place!

As I reach out toward the altar,

A gentle wind pushes back against my hands.

The wind is empty, echoing in my

hollow heart like a sigh.

The sigh of angles, but absent the

vibration of the stings. 

A kneeling supplicant, I am mocked for the fullness denied me. 

Mighty music, rolling harmonic chords riding that wind,

leave a sweet taste in my mouth. 

No flaming coals for this prophet.

With no suffering, how can I expect epiphany?

Kneeling, and shuttering from the chill of that wind.

I am unable to lift my eyes.

Why, here in the Holy Place, am laid prone for the shame of ungodliness;

since that was the reason for seeking it out?

Rolling harmonics change. Notes, high and shrill

as as a pointing finger – louder, higher, purer, they drive at me.

I run, and run, and run! 

Some long time later, gulping guilty breaths, I sink -

surrounded by a still and heavy fecundity;

massive enough that the potency of neither wind nor harmony

can pierce it.

Here, at last - the Temple of the Trees is found.

A space full with life, begging for meaning;

a perfect analogy, absent context.

Produced from my pack, the sacrilege of my flute

sounds the first breath of being here.

Imperfect, but ripe with life and all things possible.

My humanity is not a crime.

It is here – I sit writing.

#poetry

An updated version of one an old Toastmasters contest speech I gave, about the death of my father. Hope it translates well enough...

How uncomfortable can you get? I don’t mean being too cold, or achy, or in a tie; I mean really uncomfortable. Lots of things trigger it: a creepy first date, a job interview, or that conversation when a relationship ends. Hopefully you haven’t had many events like this. The ones you want to escape from. When those feelings start on your spine, then travel down to twist your gut - our instinct is just to run, to be away.

Funerals are like that. Stiff clothes, bad lighting, flat music, and a sadness hanging over everything. It’s harder if the person was close, and there’s a hole your heart because you didn’t get to…..

For me it was eighteen months ago. Seeing my dad lying in that casket was surreal. He didn’t look like himself. It was partly the poor make-up job, but mostly it was how still he was. He’d been vibrant – even reclining in his chair. That stillness was….unnatural.

The receiving line was the worst. I shook hands with strangers who pretended like they’d known my dad. My dad. I forced a smile, traded grips and reluctant hugs, and pretended I was listening. I didn’t want to hear what they thought of him, or how sorry they were. What I wanted was five minutes alone, to….

It’s funny how your mind can drift off in times of stress. Mine took me to the summer when I was eleven….

It felt like an odd choice. I was jerk at eleven. Maybe a lot kids are at that age, but I was a super jerk. I’d suddenly get fed up with anything, storm off alone to brood, and then complain that nobody liked me. I must’ve been a joy. 

It was hot, we’d been outside too long, and everything was getting on my nerves. The cut grass smelled too strong, and the other kids laughed too loud. The sun was too bright, the game was stupid….I had struck out the last time. In kickball! Everybody laughed at me. I tried to laugh too – at first.

It'd be my turn again soon, and I couldn't take it anymore. I had to get away. I couldn’t have said why, but I knew if I stepped to the plate again; I was going scream or bite something. Or cry. It was too much: the noise, itchy grass, and my sweaty….everywhere.

What can I say?  I was eleven…And I bolted for an oak tree. I needed shade, silence, and five freaking minutes to cool down. Or to learn kickball. Or develop a healthy sense of perspective; whatever came first. I needed to be alone, and not be there.

I'd just settled down when the adult came strolling over. Dick Dickson, a name I can’t forget. I kept my eyes down as he crouched beside me. 

"Shade trees are nice. But other people are nice too." He took a caramel crème from his pocket, offering it to me. "Candy?" 

I turned away, “No thanks….dick”

He unwrapped it, put it in his mouth, then walked away - whistling.

I didn't care. It only mattered that he was gone, I was alone, and getting my five minutes. What he'd said meant nothing to me, because I hadn't really been paying attention.

You know moods pass, and once mine had, candy sounded great. Walking back, I saw everybody had a piece. I told Dick I was ready for mine too. He chuckled and said, "Nope, sorry. All gone"

That part I understood...sometimes there’s no second chance at a first try. Everybody stared at me. I went home, still uncomfortable – and candy-less.

At dad’s funeral, I remembered needing to escape so badly. Now people were telling my dad's stories. I couldn't take it anymore. I was going to scream, or bite something. Or cry.

Dad told great stories. He was a police officer  most of his life, and I don't think is hard childhood back in the mountains prepared him a son who liked show tunes and Vaudeville.

I never doubted he loved me. We just weren't in sync most of the time. 

It was like that when I got a call from my sister saying he'd gotten worse, and I should come home right away. I drove as fast as I could, but he died an hour before I got there to say goodbye. Just a little late, not quite in sync.

In my opinion, Dad's stories were his one artistic pursuit; and he was a master. I learned them too, and told them. It was my strongest connection to him. Now that he was gone, I imagined he'd left them to me. That they were mine now.

So, why was I hearing them from these people I'd never met or barely knew? It had to stop. I had to get away. I needed a quite place, and five freaking minutes to myself. I needed to say good-bye. What can I say? I wasn’t eleven anymore, and there was no shade to hide in. Everybody was looking at me. I was uncomfortable, and dad-less.

It’s funny how your mind can drift off…Mine kept repeating something I’d heard when I was eleven.  "Shade trees are nice. But other people are nice too."

How uncomfortable can you get? When you don’t escape…you find out. 

I faced what I thought I couldn’t stand. I listened to the stories. They weren’t the same ones, really. They had new perspectives, details, and characters; adding to the ones I already knew. I got to see my dad in a new light, shinning from those who’d known him in ways I didn’t. It wasn’t easy, or comfortable, but it was worth it.

So, how uncomfortable can you get? What can I say? Life is hard. Growing, learning, loving, and loss. None of it is comfortable, just inevitable. Sometimes, it’s even worth it. I’m not wise enough to give advice…expect that you should find a good shade tree.

It is ok to get away sometimes, just don’t stay too long. There are nice people in the world. And candy, too.

When I was a kid, the question “What do you want to be?” made my palms sweat. I got so worked up that I became terrified of it. Why were people always asking me what I wanted to be? They’d put their hand on my shoulder, lean over me, and stare down their noses and say, “So....what do you want to be when you grow up?” Even now, hearing anybody say that brings back memories of nose hairs, and old-man smell. Or else puffy shoulder pads and too much Jean Nate.

The question ran in circles inside my head. It grew from a little hamster on a squeaky wheel into a pack of screeching brain ferrets.

"What do you want to be?!"

"What do you want to be?"

“I don't know!!”…

There were so many variables, and too many ways it could all go wrong. I needed a plan, or a mind map, or a dream journal. I needed help. I needed Tony Robbins...Air. I needed air.

I took a deep breath, and gave it serious thought. What did I want to be? That....was such a stupid question! Then, like any other anxious, and slightly neurotic kid, I asked myself even stupider ones:  

Would growing up really turn me into something different?

Once it did would grown-up me even be me anymore? 

Did that explain why adults were all so weird?

Ahhhh! It was so unfair. I had just started figuring out who I was. And I liked me....so far. I didn’t want to become something else. Not to mention having to figue out what that was. People said I could be anything I wanted, but that's a lot of things. How was I supposed to decide?

That's when the suggestions started. 

So creative....have thought of doing any writing?

My daddy was preacher, and you’re so much like him. Have you thought about.....?

Wow! The stuff that boy says...just like a politician. What if....      

Police officer was good enough for your father, and it's good for... 

That great voice you've got - radio's the thing for you, kid...

So many choices. An arsenal of possibilities were being fired at me like guided missiles with 'someday' painted on the sides. Their intentions were noble, and the suggestions weren't bad, per se. They just all sounded so...boring! 

If I had to grow up and become something, I wanted to become something cool. I had a few ideas of my own, and mine came from a better source - Saturday morning cartoons.

By the Power of Greyskull

Autobots, roll out!

Yo, Joe!

Thunder, Thunder, Thunder – Thunder Cats, Ho!

All these amazing heroes were calling me to action. How could I help but answer? What little boy wouldn't want to run off and…Oh, wait a minute - that was it! That's what I could be – a hero. Yes! All the worrying would be over. I’d tell mom, and she'd tell everybody else, and they'd stop asking me that stupid question.

The following weekend, I concluded a thoroughly researched and detailed presentation, when my own mother put her hand on my shoulder. She leaned over me, looked down her nose and said, “Oh, that sounds so dangerous. Can’t you be something that doesn't involve getting shot?”

"Getting shot?"?! Like she just shot me down, you mean?

Be anything, huh? Didn’t they get it?

The potential to be anything gave you a selection pool of potentially everything. That's way too many things. And it clearly wasn’t true. I mean, if being a SilverHawk or Master of the Universe was off the table, what other restrictions were they hiding from me?

I decided they meant I could be anything, so long as anyhing didn't include everything awesome.

Meanwhile, the suggestions kept rocketing in. Some even seemed intentionally unhelpful. For example, at one family reunion my alcoholic uncle Larry suggested I become a mime.

I was skeptical. "A mime, uncle Larry? Really?!"

"…...oh, yeah!”, he slurred with confidence. “You could be rich and famous. And I'll tell you something else, kid; chicks dig mimes."

You might wonder how twisted or cynical a person has to be to suggest something like that to a child. But what you should be wondering is how desperate and gullible a child would have to be to try it. Well, I can you from experience that no body ‘digs’ mimes. 

Almost too late, I made the connection. Of course, they'd been talking about a career rather than a complete metamorphosis. And of course, that realization didn't help either. Why was deciding where a person would collect their paychecks so important that it gets reframed as transmutation of identity?

In addition to being worried, now I starting to get scared. Really scared.

I was scared that I'd never become anything. 

Eventually I ended up doing what a lot of people do; live with the confusion, and work as a waiter. What scared me then was how much nothing changed. Is that what life was? New fears, added onto old?

I was still the same anxious, insecure kid, only now with a driver’s license, and then a mortgage. In time, with two daughters of my own. 

The first time one of them asked me if she could be anything she wanted, I swear I almost said “Sure”. But, I couldn’t tell her that…What was I going to do? What could I say?! I remembered the heartache and disappointment when I discovered I’d never shoot laser beams out of my eyes, or breathe under water, or even own a magical sword. I just couldn’t do it. Because if I did, she would find out. She’d find out that what her dad had become wasn’t really much more than what he was when he’d wondered the same thing. It would worry her, scare here, and maybe break her little heart. What was I going to say?

Suddenly, I had an idea. I knelt down beside her, looked her in the eye, rubbed noses and said “I don’t know, honey. All I know is that I like who you are.”

She gave me a hug, then ran off to play. I don’t know if that helped or not.

At least, I think I didn't scare the kid.

Each time....with the need to write, I start by standing. Ideas want to take me places. They have legs, and so must I. Pacing and prowling….my hallway, the park, or a dimmed bar smelling of sawdust, Chanel, and sweat.

A bag of angry weasels are in my brain. They cry, scratch, bite and hiss.

“Let us out, please.”

“Forget them, let me out!”

“I want to run”

….”to fly”

“To fight, explore, expose. To reclaim”

That mad cacophony of disembodied pleadings are complete with lives, loves, and goals. Each with a story to tell.

Enough!

I sit down, hands poised over the keys.

I feel the press of their outlines around me, pushing against my reality with the desire of being. I am god to them. But I have no desire to bless, to test, or to control. I only want to set them free and let them go where they wish.

Perhaps that makes me more gate than god. I wield the power to release them, but bear no responsibility for their actions. If they bring wind or rain, emulation or emancipation, pastoring or pillaging; all is one to me...I just let them out.

Power without consequence is dangerous, but so are they. Characters can be dangerous, and stories can trap you.

But I can't hold them back any longer.....fighting against editing, against constraint, against even further definition. Like me, they don't have to be understood in order to exist.

Understanding is for agents, approval ratings, and accolades. Precision of language is for the editors who write the synopsis of book jackets, and for professors publishing for tenure.

Let my stories be loud and messy. Just let them be. Let me throw the gates open and not care what happens. Let music play while satyr’s cavort, piping perfectly irreverent impromptu, as I dance with them….hedonistic, angry, and free.

I begin typing, and the dam bursts….

Potential becomes kinetic - a story’s natural state. The figures pressing around me break free, pouring through me to dampen our world with the constant mists of their crashing spray. Here I sit, feeling like Annie Taylor at Niagara (or maybe Frodo Baggins, famous barrel-rider), caught in the flow, hoping I won’t be crushed.

It was wonderful. At first.

Ideas rolled out of me, and I felt lighter. I saw them as they passed from and then away from me. There were monsters, but also beauty. There was truth crashing along like mythical horses, pulling a cart filled with boxes of hate, and bigotry, and fear. I wondered at this, then realized it was right; what raving lunatic doesn't believe themselves to be enacting a Truth? That realization startled me the worst, and the outpouring chilled me.

Behind this came tenderness. Characters dropped into being showing empathy, pathos, Eros, and catharsis. The weasels feel out of my brain, onto a world they covered with blood, flowers, drugs, money and dreams. They plotted and planned, undertaking adventure -- winning goals or suffering defeats. There was laughter, bubbling up into satire, razor wit, and bawdy farce. On and on it flowed -- characters and ideas born and dying. Flowing on, too much and too fast.

“Stop!”, I tried to yell. 

“Stop, or at least slow down. The world needs you; you were born for this. You were let out for this purpose -- to be seen, to exist. To be known……”

Ideas and characters, big or small, hero or villain; they did not hear or did not care. 

I was more gate than god, and once the doors were open I was not responsible. There was no thought of control. A force is a force.

A tsunami is powerful, but you can’t examine a drop of water surrounded by a flood.

Over the edge, my barrel crashing, I plunged into a pool, and emerge to the safety of a shore.

They are all gone, floating away on their own power, living their own stories. I imagine they might pass you at some point. You might see a dragon with a baseball bat, a villainous hamster who only wishes to ice-dance, or a princess who’s saved herself but unsure of where she’s left her sword. They were all here, I think - pressing against me and hissing like weasels in my brain to be let out...to exist.

Overhead, there is a rainbow. Water caught in the air long enough to project a story of their own. How is understanding communicated? Whether for agents, approval ratings, accolades, or audiences…..how do we explain the flood contained in each drop of water? 

From inside the torrent there is no perspective, so how can there be a simile? What is the metaphor for everything?

I can't explain being caught in a tsunami. But maybe I can trap drops in the air, where they refract and project new colors. Maybe a story is a rainbow.

Small Hands

Small hands reach out into the void;

For your soul, please have a care…

Lest identity spent, sees your soul’s lament

At small hands grasping nothing but air.

Pictures

The connection is cold and immovable;

like their pictures on the wall.

Blank stares in two dimension

Deepen disconnection with them all.

These moments are rendered timeless,

So I'm amazed how it can be, they mark

(and mock) its silent passing

In this solitude with me.

Piracy

Bright eyes, above sweet laughter…

These were treasures stolen from me.

Too late, perhaps, to save my soul;

Yet I hope to set it free.

Crashing

All at once, the crashing comes,

Expected yet ignored.

When Blood-red swords are thrashing,

then my dignity I'll restore.

With nothing left, I'm free to move,

a spark to light the fuse….

Stripped of all, now standing tall,

with no fear, cause there’s nothing to lose.