“A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.” ~ Lao Tzu I would like to go a way’s away, to a Cabin, and I would like to look you in the eyes, and you look me in the eyes, as lovers do, a soft invisible smile, quiet, warm, calm. I would like to not come back for ten days (ten days is not long enough, but it is longer than I have taken for myself in eleven years). It would be a first visit, a return to the woods of my youth. I can cut wood quite well, and show you how. I can pick too much mint, because I’m distracted by you. The mint is strong, almost bitter, in the wild. I would like to walk with you in the moonlight. The grass is wet. I can see you clearly in the dark, only you’re black and white, but I can’t see how the gate opens, so I have to feel for it, and the ground is uneven so…walking, talking, listening to and with you…I walk left then right, as if tipsy. The ground is not flat out here, and I love you. I mean, I love that about nature: it’s uneven. I would like to love you, but I do not know you, and I value space more than even love, for in space we can dance. I would make a fort in our cabin out of sheets and lay there, looking at you, into you, and you looking at me, into me, and we could read a paperback. I have a good reading voice. And we could have a fire, though it is not cold, but it would light up the fort, flickering, warmly, with shadows of our future. I would like to love you and you love me, for love can only be shared, but my luck does not run that way, these days, or for awhile, and I have a feeling that I will not love and be loved again until all my luck is run out. I would like to talk with you about things I care about that others don’t care about because they don’t care about me, and hear you care, not because you care about me, but because you care about the things I care about. I would like to listen. I could do it half the night, hour turning over hour, until I fall asleepinyourwords. I need make up time: I need to listen and breathe and take you in and just stop. I need to relax, and breathe—and what I need most (of course) is to cry. But you won’t see my tears, for I can’t quite cry yet. The mosquitoes, the water roaring beneath us, your unwritten life set like calligraphy on a new page, arching, bright, sharp, wandering, struggling, fast, laughing—letting go is half the beauty in elegance. more here: elephantjournal/author/waylon/ You’re kind. I would like to bring a paperback with pen illustrations, say, and read it in the crook of a tree, and I would walk there barefoot, and you would be overdressed in a $1 secondhand dress, as if going to a play. You would skip stones in the creek, then I would try and outdo you. You would set out a picnic, and I would eat your leftovers, and the trees far above would waver greenly in my eyes as I looked up at you looking up at them. There’s a yellow butterfly! On the book, waving its wings without flying, softly. I wonder what it’s thinking about, today?
Posted on: Sun, 21 Jul 2013 16:31:14 +0000