this spring

despite the light & cheer the sun will sing

Mayday is cursed with doublethink,

            or blessed with the awareness that strange days can bring,

April the scattering of shelter on the brink—

this viral trouble brewing will be the undoing of every known thing

            so we must link to become the unknown, the ensuing world must shrink to the roots,

                                                                                                            blink in the truth,

                                                                                                            drink in the proof

                                                            that the glorious inner tree inside our box of bone

                                                            deserves & needs the space to breathe,

                                    the sense to ground yourself and heed the facts, & contact trace

the daily face you need when what was once completely real & mapped,

like a fever, burns away

 

(hours vanish every day)

 

the fears you chase & feed a rising song that makes you turn a ray of off-key music

into melting laser beams instead of streaming sunlit power, 

                        when harmony is what makes sense

                        especially when danger seems to fall like pelting hail in thundering showers, 

                                    when saner deeds would make us see: the crystals bouncing off the

                                    window sills we lean upon to catch some air amid the storms of worry

            seem to crash upon our every choice; perhaps some too seldom merry,

many hobbled and scarred or scared already,

already too far forgotten to see that if we really rally we each can rise or fall as needed,

like a voice—

if all we were was sound, what would you hear right now? where a pentatonic solace,

                                                                                    where a harsh and growing noise?

 

*

 

this spring

the truth will be heard! though we may lose our sense of smell…

but once cured, recovered, and well

we’ll one day emerge, shaken & purged, with a grim cellular tale to tell!

            and I pray that by May in a year, to the day,

fewer waves will have surged & swelled or overwhelmed the Sacred Hearts

                                                the real-life County Generals of moxy and pluck,

                        dead-tired staff with not enough masks, what the actual FUCK!?

and meanwhile a maniac narcissist dictator explodes every day into shouty federal toxic muck

 

                        O DEATH

                        O DEATH

                        WON’T YOU COME TO EVERY EGO YET?                                [sing/harmoniz.]

 

DEATH, COME TO EGO

not to disproportionately under-resourced minority communities

with weakened social structures and fewer medical opportunities

 

DEATH, COME TO EGO

not to living angels draining every drop of mana that they have to save our souls,

the helpers stuck in hell with lives they have the right to safely lead outside their crucial roles

 

                        O DEATH

                        WE ARE NO LONGER YOUR GOD-SLAVES                                          [harmoniz.]

 

our minds magical matter like a system of broad caves,

our sense of the ultimate both gnawed & craved,

our each dying memory clawed its grave

in the nourishing soil of our soul to sprout like a twisted fern,

sacred, flawed & brave.

 

*

 

this spring

it’s adventure time: I turn 33, grateful mending human child of every bird & bee,

a wind-tossed seed, roots as strong as weeds,

I’ve opened both my eyes to every contra vitae scheme,

            at least the ones that are now eminently visible to me;

the eye can learn through patience. it can take so long to see.

 

*

 

this spring

yesteryear seems ancient,

audiovisual biomimesis motivates this verbal arrangement,

            heightened herbal engagement that dishes me visions in hummed style

[humming], a Cheshire cat’s grin streaks the summer skies,

the reach of our species the sharp shadow of a sundial,

the buzz of quantum static where a bat’s wing beats in the gloom—

 

                        do bats eat butterflies?

                        is a hurricane pure chaos?

                        isn’t every crude or beautiful doom?

 

*

 

this spring, this spring

epoch-wizened forest fruits will bloom and share the night with me:

 

ॐ                                                                   ॐ

{I am not my body                                          I am not my mind}

 

this spring, this spring

I’m free