A moment ago as I began to write my heart objected to a drawn in breath of smoke, my inhalation interrupted with a hot sharp proclamation from my chest. A quick exclamation point of pain driven straight through my breathing, the sort of things I gather you’re supposed to look out for. I sat down, exhaled, and began to type. It’s the way the words work out. Of the things no one is happy about, this at least shouldn’t be at the front of the line.
The yard is wild and the winds sweep the bursting green leaves into a tumbling tide. The late rain added an extra burst of bug and bloom, everything dusted with aphids and pollen. Birdseed sunflowers sway and wilt upon their stalks, and dogs and cats doze, strewn around the property. The day has gone from morning marine layer to restless overcast to clouds that might have reached their coming home moment. The winds has us surrounded and John Coltrane’s sax joins Milt Jackson’s vibraphone from the speaker on my porch, playing past the grave. Forever never lasts, but it’s still a lot of time.
I smoke some more, I pour myself another cup, the coffee black and whispering steam. The gray of the day is a weight off my eyes, the sunshine seldom more than a pleasant acquaintance of mine, and anyway, my personality is more suited to the dark. I speak in circles, I think in pits. I am trailing graceless ache and stunted longing in spit shined sky and clouds of carbon, blood mixed with earth and wind as I plummet clumsily through time. I long for tangled limbs and kisses, I have all the same spent dreams I’ve always carried, all but dead in the wide warm squander of my heart. But here and now is here and now, and the sky is wild with the wind, and words are all I have.
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