Soapbox

Some autumn days
when the sun is lemon custard bright
and sharper than glass,
the trees in their robes of scarlet and orange
ignite when the light touches them
like votive candles  enkindled
to celebrate the beauty of day
and pray for mercy in the darkness ahead.

Some autumn days
the leaves beneath my feet
smell exactly like front doors slamming
and car engines starting,
tail lights dwindling at the end of my street
and they rise and fall around my shoes,
goodbyes not spoken, yet still clearly heard.

Some autumn days
the sky is so illogically, thousand-mile blue
and each cloud sculpted Da Vinci perfect
and I know I could be crushed beneath the weight
of a single bird streaking across it.
But when I tip my head back and throw wide my arms,
my heart rises like helium on a string
and realizing I have no more need for it,
I open my fingers,
let it float away to be with you.

I am perplexed by the apparentl uniformity of belief
in such a changeling concept,
the monolith from a million shards.
Like Eskimos with a hundred different words for 'snow'
there are so very many different visions of "God"
each  visage a chimera in itself.
And yet they have defined him here,
built him, immutable, of glass and stone,
of faith and surrender.
Scrubbed young faces chatter and text,
gathered here to celebrate their agreement on the definition of something
that mankind can never, will never, probably should never
agree upon.

What allows one mind to grasp and hold fixed
that which slips like glittering minnows through my own heart?
How do they imprint one design like footsteps in cureing concrete
when another finds only shadows in a whirlwind,
seeks but glimpses only a jellyfish opacity of desire,
a longing without focus?
Is there something identifiable that sorts them,
some stamp of purpose, cast of jaw,
or something not visible, perhaps, but quantifiable~
a particular fold of gray tissue
or tide of chemical messages
that tells them, steadies them,
looses them like an arrow to the same target?

Do they perhaps retain a characteristic my DNA
has rejected:
the ability to hear angel wings?

I am exhausted  but I cannot let go,
cannot allow myself to sleep.
I feel as if I have to see it all,
absorb each patient rock, scrubby sage and circling hawk
as if by the act of witness I can bind it to me
and myself to it.

For surely these will be my last-ever glimpses of this place
so ancient and so newly born:
cradle and crypt of primordial bones
yet raw and aching, still smeared with the blood of its birth.

When they said "Greater Yellowstone"
I was expecting rolling grasslands and steep, conifered hills.
To my weary, eastern eyes this high desert plateau looks like
a place that is still under construction-
Welcome to Montana! Pardon our mess- we're redecorating!
The buttes ringing the horizon are just huge mounds of rock and dirt,
the winding, scrub-choked gullies leading away
are the tracks of a gargantuan bulldozer that recently pushed them here.
Their flanks are bare, raw and stinging like the knees of a bicyclist
sent tumbling across her chip-sealed roads,
random bits of brush clinging to wounded skin,
rocky bones exposed to the stretching sky.

The woman across from me has been asleep for an hour
but something makes me shake my head,
stay awake, hold on.
Foolish.
This land has existed for milllions of years before I arrived to bear witness,
will carry on for a million more without me~
yet I feel beholden to these hills,
responsible.
If theoretical physicists are correct and we do influence the universe
by our mere presence,
change the cat's destiny just by looking at it
then perhaps my aching eyes can do some good to this land.
Maybe, by paying attention, I can nudge the clouds to rain,
help trees to struggle and grow,
bison and elk and mustang to hold on against the steady progress of death.

From this dark and wind-swept morning
I reach for something strong to carry with me,
pray for something bright and good to leave behind
but I have nothing to offer but my observance-
two weary eyes to acknowledge
the creeks and dry washes, rattlesnakes and gravel,
stubborn buffalo grass and suddenly bright irrigated fields of hay
that fly past at 70 miles per hour
as the bus rattles on, heedless of my obligation,
hurrying to return me to the humid fields and round, green hills of Ohio.

Turbulent clouds part at last and light streams through,
fingers stroking the broken earth in benediction.
I rub my eyes and nod,
Amen, and amen.

Don’t you worry about me-
I’ getting used to it.
I’m getting used to the way the house sounds
when I walk in and no one’s home,
used to sitting down to dinner all alone,
meeting the steady regard of the pepper shaker across the table.
I've gotten used to how it feels
when something happens and I want to tell you
and I remember I’ll never tell you
anything again.

    We build walls around our certainty to protect our special sense of place, to guard against things that might threaten it- things like compassion, a recognition of common bonds and larger truths. Common bonds break down walls, and ours walls are what lets everyone know that we are special.
   We celebrate our small variations of color, language, cultural standards, shelter the perception of our vital uniqueness because too often we find our validation in superiority rather than in commonality.

    Like a rare and precious orchid we give our rituals sanctuary behind the hothouse glass of exclusion lest we be damaged by the cold, harsh winds of “other”, tainted by the mongrel of “them”.

    But the things we let divide us are not rare and exotic or worthy of protection. Intolerance and xenophobia are common as crabgrass,
as smothering  as kudzu, as toxic as poison ivy. They are parasitic, strangler vines that envelope the community, robbing it of life and light, choking off the ability to work for the common good, blocking our view of the future.
    When we put ourselves behind the glass walls of tradition and segregation, we exile ourselves from the universal constants of the quest for purpose: the need for  affection, a child’s smile, the very beating heart of life.