Yesterday the cat
explained at great length
that we occupy
her house because
she loves us, but that we
dare not take
this status for granted.
I scratched her behind her ears
to signify my agreement
and so she took my simple
act of kindness.
You get another week
she said, purring.
It is hard, he says,
to put your cart
before your horse
when you have neither.
So then you are left
with the choice
of whether to buy
a horse and try
to overload it
until it cannot walk
or a cart easily filled
that no one can move,
or to just buy a half
dozen clichés.
Once again
I can imagine it
arriving one morning
probably unannounced.
I won’t see it coming
until I find
myself in the middle
of it, wrapped
up within, always
knowing that it
will slide away
without warning
and the leaves
will fall in regret.
Far out on the mesa
the wind sings an alluring song
to the melody of the wooden flute.
You can sit among the sage,
and like the orange orbed coyote
around you, stare up at the moon
and look for the spirits
of the ancient ones that lived
in these mountains, the tricksters
who come out when the sun
is carried off for its rest,
and fancydance up and down
the parched arroyos until
they take the moon and depart
before dawn, promising a return.
Night arrives,
the rain arrives,
and the sun
is washed away
to dry beyond
the horizon
and there to
prepare to reappear.
Quantum gravitation,
I strongly suggest,
is something on which
you cannot really count.
I know all things
are supposed
to be relative
but as an only
and adopted child
I have none,
for me relativity
is something special
and generally
the lack weighs heavily.
Each day I am certain something
more slips away, forgotten, no
longer able to be recalled, lost
in the vast abyss of yesterdays.
I would like to think this happens
because something new, something
better has taken its place, and I
had no choice but to displace it.
That is the convenient story I tell
myself, although I am rarely convinced,
and know that there is a good chance
it is no more than a lie of sorts,
but one that will slip away
and be replaced by something better,
or perhaps I will just forget
that it was a lie in the first place.
