la retourniere c'est moi

Actually I don't know what 'retournier' means. maybe nothing, maybe something silly... i'll take it. Here is a sketch hastily thrown together and delivered with only the usual self-consciousness about such things--a bit of my consciousness, poured out for you.

Midafternoon wanderings uncut
child minded I wandered this neighborhood
of houses and people and myself--
as it was in the California highlands
and Florida lowlands one day or another--
breezy blowing away the hum of machines I live in.
Sol-streaked dapples shaded grass leaves and needles

after a year why did I never
wander before I know not
(huddling under cover of walls, doorlocks)

This pebble just will not fall out of my sandal.

That hazy field of youth camps days in summers
saying 'yore' like crazy in my recollection
grasshoppers, tiny jaws digesting, fed the birds
like the cardinal sitting in the olive tree
helix trunk bent under productivity

Coming upon a park eyes open
the children so small, concentrated everything
(what is the world like from the thirty inch perspective?)

the pine trees old friends since four
the first home yard climbing out front
sticky with sap (worried proud mother
of the bald monkey climbing watches
warm sun memories calm comfort).

Fingers ridged, the prints palping, my
eyes glide past to the bark--
splits running stem to green.
Hello let me touch your skin
cousin
will you be here when I return
as you have before? Thank you.

What is that, asked later in mind,
my ears drowned out the breeze and now
silent bird wings
an insect's foot touches a blade of grass,
a giant metal drum
(for the biggest hobo cookout of all time)
property of... says the sign.

Shaded old streets there and back
(am I avoiding a certain address or two?)
school children now walking
hello, hello, hello mother, nice day out
peach-wearing hose-watering woman
nice day out, yes, hello and how are you?

Twelve again.
--and it was indeed at just that moment
when the light was so bright
eyes closed and heart open
world at the touch of a heart available
(she said, what I wouldn't give to feel that again)
feet working slowly. Past hedges

A journey brings us renewal and revelation, I think. If we're tired that's the price we pay for allowing stasis to slough off for a few moments, hours, or years. Through pain we are reborn. Through prices paid our transactions are complete. Through risks taken are rewards meted out. Only through experience is everything for which we can ever be grateful gained. There, here, then, now, those are all what we are and what we wish and dream and never were (but there is more yet to us beyond what merely is). When sadness overcomes us it passes through, and pain is just like it, and it passes its own way on; it has its own beauty that is a part of us, as well. How can we not be so happy, every single moment, so exstatic that tears of laughter stream down our cheeks, just for the chance to live?

Thank you, friends, thank you one and all. It is good to be back.