writing by feeling

Writing by feeling is ostensibly a junk exercise, a serial malpractice; of, recklessly explaining the rivers of oneself out loud with feverish expectation of complete loss and futility. An ample test of tepid rejection; one I try for and pass. I cannot help it. That first nameless street leaves me predisposed to loss and no simple words to explain it. It being: imminent loss. unreachable loss. I was small and spun a plastic globe and could understand that distance meant so much more. So I dig, write, not to tell of oceans but of rivers, the narrowest ones. Invite rejection, make accidents. Both are easier to accept that way.

Sleeping on the train

The motion made my eyes close
my lungs sigh.

I was thinking of closets and separating
what all doesn't fit right.
What to keep or give away.
The end of work day conundrum --
to accept life or
sleep through it.

I was jolted --
his deep voice behind me a few seats over
as I heard him sing like gospel on a swing:

Life is a-waltzin'! 

He broke out in a raspy old tune and cleared
his throat to the metal wheels clacking faster
faster as we pulled away from South station.

(I could tell from how South station makes my bones feel.)

I held in my smile, let out one more sigh.
Ours was a traincar clicking west.
west. west.

Muscle memory and counting clicks.

From behind I hear the young new couple giggling her
thin leg draped over his their
four arms tangled like doves in knitted stupor.

So what about that! they exchange a long
long sheepish
look, the type --
you hang love on.

Uniformly their limbs untwist,
their bodies rise
nervously in splendor --

Love is anyhow
a spectacular occasion no matter the era

(It is their first trip into the big city.
She has dressed for this and he in his father's suit).

In slight mock and the rest excitement
they share their very
first dance
on this train
to his bluesy wisdom:

Life is a-waltzin'! Baa-ba! 
Daa-badee-da!  

Through rusty metal humming and cement tunnels
I hear her old time smoky heels and his wingtips
her bouncing curls and warm red lips as he reaches
low to tip his hat and
steady her hips.

I'm not going to turn to watch because
I am afraid
of the fiction but
I open my eyes,

and did because imagination
gets every last one of us.

The traincar was colder and dimmer
than when we left.

Today's newspaper was rolled
loosely
inside his worn black fingers his
gaze caught elsewhere.

We slowed to still.
Picked up west,
west again and
I don't recall him leaving.

Somehow I found myself alone and
mourning a man singing, crying
life is a-waltzin' 
to no one,
not even me.

Life Observation #8

On holding hands:

two hands holding feels like two hearts sharing one prayer. 

What Bert taught me

1. Nothing, and no one, is invisible to God.

2. Spit is an art tool. So is sand, and hands, and sticks. And his story reminds me: there is no creative poverty in God’s economy. 

3. Some art forms are nameless. But every artist has a name.

4. “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Matthew 6:21. God’s holy map leads to every single heart. Bert, and so many like him, knows this better than me. Before I see disability and strangeness, I need to start with their beating red heart. God, help me to remember Bert, and how he, without agenda, taught a famous artist the art of quiet awe and passing.

5. The canvas of earth is 4.5 billion years old. The Bible tells us our lives are but evaporating mist upon it. We are here and in long generations from now no one will know we lived except by the traces of how we loved.

And my faith tells me: we are evaporating elsewhere.