Soulscapes

I am writing to you,
my figurative angel
from one hundred miles away
I write to you from this vacant meadow,
which is quite beautiful!
and while the rest of the world is turned on mute—
it feels like I’m right there with you.

And I suppose some neighborhood boys have gathered wood from these same trunks
so at night they could sit around a fire and watch them burn to dust.

Miles and miles of threaded rubber form lines
uniting us by wire
And across the scraps of molten rock,across the vast amounts of ocean
there is an array of invisible lines keeping us and the world in motion

Take off your flip flops and let your feet sink into the dirt— you come here to enjoy the quiet
maybe to forget about death
because for the tree: there is no heaven
just a motionless thoughtlike the stillness of water

Walking through these walls you are walking through time
you start to wonder…
it’s as if the people who had once been inside these very bricks
were whispering their secret!
until the lumps are burned to dustthe piles of coal are infinite

The news speaks of death tallies, and billion dollar bank robberies—
did you hear about the happening wounds?
And so stands the tree: held down by its roots, uninjured, alive under the crescent moon.
And so you lie awake for hours: nothing you know is set in stone, as they say.
The mind appears unsound like the leaves blossoming from branches
on any given day

The glow of the creek reflects orange off of the buoyant sun
and the irrevocable poison is force-feeding the fish
on the side of the watershed it’s hard to distinguish
of that which cannot be fixed

Every night on your walk home
under the phase of the moon
think of me!
A highway lies between us

Inside the cemented walls
at the tip of the town
it’s hard to hear the summer sounds
shadows are passing through you
as the last of the sky’s blue
darkens.

The cracks in the street tend to acquire rubbish amongst the other various smut
and the butts of half-smoked cigarettes are scattered—
wasted, made mostly of ash
like stardust.

Wild plants and ivy are braided through the fence and the trees are standing tall and green
There’s something about sitting in your backyard that gives you a wonderful feeling

Earlier the screens read that hundreds were found dead
everyone was helpless
I sat alone on a hill of grass and prayed for everybody’s wellness
but the bad news just kept on coming…

How mysterious it is! To not know what lies behind the open doors.
Perhaps there is a man standing alone, or a miraculous fate intoned—
you hesitate to ask questions.
On your walk home you hear echoes coming from a world that could be yours

Life went on happening as you looked through your rear-view mirror—
the green leaves on the trees blew the red lightturned yellow the grey sky turned blue
like life’s many different phases and those of the moon
the meters undergo change,
too

Along the maze of red bricks through the side streets and various alleyways
there’s a thread of street lights, porch swings and white picket fences
no two houses look the same
the church bells always ring come noontime and by summer the plants have fully grown
between the country roads and stacks of stone
this is what we call home

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Soulscapes