Away and Apart

 

 When I was a child,

I looked under molding leaves

and saw many-legged monsters;

I looked in the dusty canyons of runnelled bark

and saw fairy jewels;

I looked through the spaces between clouds

and saw coiled and smoking dragons;

I touched the silky grain of weathered deadfalls,

and smelled the woodsmoke of ancient caravan camps;

I walked on warm rough sandstone

and felt the slow breath of the earth giving me vertigo.

I listened to the call of a meadowlark

and felt my heart twist and tears prick my eyes.

I listened to a frog chorus late on a muggy night

and heard layer on layer of polyphonic bells.

I laid down beside the grassy bank of a stream so pure and silent

that I believed it flowed straight from Heaven,

and my heart eased open like a flower.

 

All that still happens,

but only when I go away; when I go apart:

 

It's then that I see patterns within patterns:

A single veined leaf or brilliant drop of water;

The curved reflection in a frog’s eye;

A beaded spiderweb in the mist;

Polliwogs that look like animated gray mud;

The tiny lenses under the feet of waterskaters;

The shining threads of milkweed pods and moth cocoons.

 

It’s then that I hear layers of sound

The cascading drone of cicadas in the trees;

The dozy buzz of flies between alpine stones below the wind;

The ruffling patter of raindrops on dry desert dust.

 

It’s then that I smell scents braiding through space

The shrewd, haunting resin of sagebrush under a cloudy sky;

The heady, lazy balsam of a pine forest in the sun;

The cool, open smell of summer snow drifted in shady gullies;

The warm, rocking-chair smell of driftwood on a desert riverbank.

But when I stay; when there is no place for me to go away;

 

It’s then that I see

layers of gray scum on once-white snow, piled in strip mall parking lots;

drooping wires like buzzing traps, tangled under the eaves of graceless houses;

neglected crumbs like grimy glitter, 

laminated in the sticky corners of fast-food floors;

drifts of scarred and crumpled trash like cardboard ghosts,

shivering in shabby back-door stairwells.

 

Images that warp the light,

welding it into a grim glaze on my corneas;

an ugly plug in my tear ducts:

A malignant twist; a brutal bend in my belief that beauty ever was.

 

It’s then that I hear

sirens, bus brakes, and car horns;

jack hammers, back-up alarms, and garbage truck hoists;

jets overhead, car stereos, and unmuffled mufflers;

card readers beeping, timers squealing, and security doors shrieking.

 

Sounds that subjugate the air in my ears;

shafts that shatter the silence and splinter my serenity;

swollen pricks of pure noise that pin me down, and penetrate against my will;

barking and howling, panting and whining:

A mechanized Wild Hunt; a manifold horror straight out of Hell.

 

It’s then that I smell

hot asphalt, engine oil, and diesel fumes;

swimming pool chlorine, burning rubber, and gasoline;

acetone, ammonia, and melting brake pads;

decaying meat, cheap perfume, and moldy bread;

cigarette smoke, dryer sheets, and disinfectant;

stale cooking oil, greasy cardboard, and musty mop-water.

 

Smells that slide and swell down my throat;

odors that worm their way up my nose until they bump into my brain;

parasitic stenches that chew their way along each limbic longitude,

gulping down every good scent I ever smelled;

leaving behind a glob of memory-snot:

            A ghastly miasma; a lingering reek pitilessly wedged in my sinuses.

 

It’s then that I’m pinned down; cornered; brought to bay—

by every single ordinary day.