Tamped Too Soon

East into a criminal moon – stolen words and breath and hearts. The women in the front seats spoke about Yale football games and climbing northeastern mountains as I snoozed from one reality to another. We'd stop in Cleveland this time but every cell begged for the murderous surrender of the Tidal East. They asked what I wanted to do if I ever made it to Connecticut. It was not poetic to say, “head towards Emily and my heart.”

Small acts of love as an answer to paralysis. How clearly the teacher beams light these days! Is it too much to ask for more? More please. More.

In that way maybe the new darkness is okay.

The leaf pile is taller than the old red Subaru, and there hasn't even been time to address the fallen in the backyard. We won't reach them all before the snow and so it is that spring is already sabotaged. That work, a futile waste. Yet through the toil of fresh decay and its comparison to the passion of being, a clarity asks after the teenage girl curled in the corner studying MLK's every . . . single . . . word. Do you remember her?  Born with a fire tamped too soon.  

That girl resists the futile. And that girl also insists: now?

Dawn sneaks in behind a frosty fog. Blowers before daylight; machines grating against an already serrated countenance. A sandalwood candle for love's sake and the aftermath bound by an empty pool. Libra sets to work in weighing an escape towards peace against the actions for justice. Though one searches for balance, isn't even that dualistic? One against another in the hopes of neutrality.

I guess in the middle of all these words and weighing, hope.

And certain prayers.

And always the immeasurable moonrise in my east.