11.1.14 When Was It A Dream?

When Was It A Dream?

Everywhere I go you hold up

far more than I ;  you keep the

parts of the day coming and coming, the

Daybreak cresting, right on cue, with the

calibration of sun shifting across the sky while ancient

Stories of how the earth actually moves , itself

kept to a disconsolate murmur . You go

hold up the life and the stars and the bills  ; you

Take hold of specifics, necessities, logistics -while I

stand by, asking, ‘Do you remember the powerful woman I once

was?  Taking charge, vibrant, sensuous; and

raising children and Inventing ways to

Heal conditions while spinning

plates on long sticks,  on the side -many of them.

Racing about to keep them from toppling :

always smiling to the audience.

Stone cold smile. Facing the audience. Now only I

topple and turn,  roll sideways trying to

Keep out from under your feet as you

arrange storm windows, shining clean, and

organize the yard mysteriously with

leaf blowers and paint the tenant’s wall .As i

Crawl into an obsequious ancestry of

grave history. Of

 inconsequential circumstance .I am

Calling out to you , now – calling .

My voice softened by time, by use: I am

trying to reach and search and find you;  to grasp my

strong arms; my own thrilling will;  but they

Seem to be veering off into hillsides

a will of their own; all that was. As I

look on, confused, stark  in my own dusk ;

the dusk of my own making. As those

Stars thrum far above me far

out in the broken fields , laid out below, as it

occurs to me to glance down in some

incalculate moment to find my

tiresome hands straining to hold

nothing but themselves.