Often, as the day’s doleful hours grow too heavy
and I long to abandon my many cares,
I think of my dog in his bed, how he has no funerals
to dread, no faux pas to dwell on late into the night,
no incessant questions ringing in his ears. And
it’s then that I'll notice his muzzle on my lap, a ball
held hopefully in his mouth. He must remain there
a good while, for what else can he do but wait for me,
his only friend, to—at last!—play a game of fetch.
Ages ago I kept a diary in a hand legible to
none but me. I read it on my knees as just-fallen
rain clings to pinecones like wet feathers,
the evening slips into its velvet gown,
and starlight pitter-patters on my head
like drops of gallium. I am thankful
the day is dying, for I have forgotten how
to live. Who wrote those words belongs
to an empire that collapsed under its
own grandiose weight, its high priest
I was seventeen when I read Alan Watts’ The Way of Zen
a couple pages at a time, putting down the book to observe
sunset drape itself over my mind, falling asleep thinking
of not thinking, hearing a flock of birds and imagining myself
flapping against the sky and recalling that I am sky. Once,
the book well-thumbed and creased and read twice over,
I felt an ant crawl the length of my arm like a nagging
sense that
I am a foul weather friend, dear poetry.
I have paid you no mind when spring rains
wash clean the marble statues of gods
and a cheery sun
reads aloud your sweet inscriptions,
nor when awed children skip through museums,
nor accordion-song fills the subway,
nor a stranger does another stranger
a kindness,
nor blueberries are so ripe they bleed sugar,
nor velvet chocolate cake knocks you dizzy with love,
nor, after making love, my wife’s perfume
clings
