Toward the blackberry.

After I lose my sight
will I still walk among grasses
and lonely clouds? Will I
be able to know each season
as juicy berries and
swollen waterways
and starlings swash above me like lost clouds?

When will I say, it's too hard to live in this universe? Will I walk toward the blackberry even as I get lost in its brambles? 

Step back...

Right there

step back a foot or so

until I can no longer see the face sagging

and your neck

what have you done to that neck?

What have I done?

I have hung on the rails of life

day and night and day

until my fingers froze in place

my eyes stopped blinking

lest i would miss that tiny

bug that would spoil the soup.

I'm done now. I can see that, and this and all other sagging parts

parts I thought had been stubborn from the start, actually, from

that eleventh year when parts became important in so

many ways and no stepping back

or forward helped anything

except a compliment from a teacher,a friend

a stranger.

Like the man on the bus with the strong cologne smell who told you he knew your father

how he played at weddings too

he said, and suddenly squeezed your leg asking you if you sang as well as your father.

You froze in that pose

not knowing what your next step should be.

You know now; now that nothing can be done

about anything that has passed; yesterday and last century all gone

discarded instamatic from the drug store

one day bleeding into the other, each day just more cloudy than the rest.

We tell ourselves we grow wiser.

More like dogs,  we step up eagerly when  new smells are introduced.

The comfort of distance.

My eyes dart left, right, 

back and forth 

my destination is supposed to be right here.

I could rest my weary body
but that bench's height is not quite low enough
for my short legs and that old man, who knows why he stopped there.

These benches could be harboring graffiti, old gum stuck among the railings, snot or.

My children ran around and chased each other and anybody else's child around these alleys. We sat and talked with strangers about everything and nothing, for hours,
Just yesterday.

I rush to my next scheduled fulfillment.

And children, they are now held  closely, all the time.

Title at the bottom.

Do you know how
you fold and
unfold a map
a microcosm visible
for the second
you need to know where you are
yet
you need the entire macrocosm
to understand where you've actually
been?
Enough history of a day
a month
an eternity of zits
and disappointments
with just a mint
peeking in the
recesses of your day pack.


The saddest thing, remembrance.