March 2022

just how many trains
one can only imagine
for two centuries

might have passed along this line
just consider the stories

like a cuckoo clock
or a tractor trailer clock
announcing the hour

the world
paints a self portrait
a picture of a living landscape
in the limited color palette
of a grey January day
and I wander
through the studio
grateful to have the chance
to see the artist at work
behind the scenes
before me
and to find myself
animated by the very same
livingness that moves in everything
from my own random walk
to Brownian motion
in the air all around me
and those wandering stars
which so long ago prefigured
the anomalies of Kuhn
setting the stage
for a new
center
and now
as I wander
the open studio
I ponder the shift
from a sinister trance
to a trance that supports
a coincidence of opposites
and a living relationship
with this living world

like a boat in a dream
floating on grass
adrift
otherworldly
with gaping stern
and faded colors, listing
I can feel its yearning for water
in the realm of the waking
and the tug of the tide
in the green grass
of its dreams

in a dance, we are
snow pile, tree, and she and I
each one finds a place

each of them, in their own way
my next step help me to find

with eyes and eyelids
and its own tired dragon
one wise old building

as surely as
the microwave radiation
received by the grey dish above
is traveling through space
and just as invisibly to
modern eyes
the Earth is alive
beneath this building
and is present in the block
that make up its walls

even when She is buried
beneath asphalt and concrete
and hidden from the Sky
there is no escaping Her
though attention may
wander from Her
animation
to the page
and to the screen
the human psyche itself
has arisen within Her and
can only perceive what is real
and what is right in relationship
with She who gives it life

the way this boat
moves around this alley
plays in my mind
like a stop motion film
a restless creature undeterred
by the relentless dryness
of these environs
curious to explore
this new home
its eddies, its coves
its tributaries
and able to do so
without ever
revealing its secret
its ability to move
under its own power
its possession
of agency even on
difficult
new terrain

murals remember
to us what we would like back
and soothe the losses

open every summer since 1950
a family business sustained
and eventually purchased
by its community of fans
a not for profit cinema
run by Hull’s Angels
waiting for summer
and convertible season
to light up the night again
with a two story silver screen
and until then bathe the roadside
in this strangely modern neon glow