justwrite 25 october

again with the explosions and always in the sky and while you’re wondering if I’m plundering the scenery or dabbling deeper in metaphor than’s called for in this situation I’ll hand over information that it’s over to the right there’s a building that’s hiding all these riding-high charges enlarged by sparks most often in the dark why just the other day straight across the way I saw a flare wide and high from the building to the sky a handheld torch flailing about slightly but clearly burning brightly and once it dipped out of view I decided truly it couldn’t be that crucial well the fact is I forgot but some time later I stopped quite suddenly and found the sky darker where the flare had been the moon was rising inflated full and fine climbing brick by brick from a flame on a stick and high into the night a hot-air delight in the cool fall presence hesitant between scenes I imagined the convenience of these two lights overlapping and I assigned the fine twine of coincidence to pulling them together but in this or any other weather there’s something to remember and something to forget were we to count all of the cards were we to whine a bit too loud there’s nothing to predict no fate on this plate that we haven’t served ourselves we toast our healths then go out to protect them too easy to reject them that laugh like they know but they reap what they sow and so do we and so we see ourselves wealthy and wise in nearer mirrors but clean them up clearer for the long view and it’s easily true that we’re wandering through a bramble patch that’ll soon burn off or maybe instead it’s a cliff up ahead that we’re skipping toward unknowing and unwarned but what can you do in the meantime just worry fine just jump higher just light the fire for a brighter view and to scare off truth and all the rest there’s a pass to test there’s a standard to manage but when you check the rubric you’ll see that the imagery is falling off dipping into philosophy can plainly be its own disaster falling fast and faster the classroom can’t compete with the street and the feet make their way quicker than coaches write the play we can only use our mouths and our hands and when the commands come again the gun fires the wrong song here I meant colors and details the wildwest verbs and the absurd herds of abstract nouns crowding around I am clowning and down the appletree lane there are country crocks of frothy milk again skipping high into the cloudless sky and waiting