It's Easier to Think

A band of owls moved into town. They shopped for groceries and ran for office, that sort of thing. It began casually. Everyone simply put up with the owls because businesses were booming and the schoolchildren’s test scores had suddenly taken a turn for the better. More and more owls, and some people too, made the move into town and the room for accommodations began to diminish. Needless to say there was a lot of construction. The town became a city. It developed a nightlife and the constant yellowish buzz of electricity. 

One night at the Electric Mole, I met Julia, the daughter of new and prosperous socialites in town. She was incredible— the most amazing eyes. We stayed awake through most nights holding each other beneath the moonlit window. We talked about everything, but mostly about our disdain for the construction and the flood of immigrant owls. 

I told her, We seem to be the only two who are concerned, who notice. The only two who want out… 

…Who want a simpler life, she said. The only two who…who… 

In a certain state, somewhere south,
you can take a mug to the ocean
and scoop a glass-full of coffee
straight from the boiling beach.

In the same way, you can arrive
at an airport holding a handful of sand
and, after looking out a window, fly back home,
where the coffee is in the kitchen,
bitter, nothing a few teaspoons of sugar

can’t fix.

But in this state, water is boiled
by the spaces between enormous shrinking shadows
and it tastes just as bitter -
a blend of fish feces,
a sand castle destroyed by angry tourists,
and the sugar you brought from home.

No one expected all three of them
to sit there on their tree stumps forever,
their senses covered with their sinuous paws
so as to shut out the vile, nefarious world.

As it happened,
it was the one on the left
who was the first to desert his post,
uncupping his ears,
then loping off into the orbit of rumors and lies,
but also into the realm of symphonies,
the sound of water tumbling over rocks
and wind stirring the leafy domes of trees.

Then the monkey on the right lowered his hands
from his wide mouth and slipped away
in search of someone to talk to,
some news he could spread,
maybe something to curse or shout about.

And that left the monkey in the middle
alone with his silent vigil,
shielding his eyes from depravity’s spectacle,
blind to the man whipping his horse,
the woman shaking her baby in the air,
but also unable to see
the russet sun on a rough shelf of rock
and apples in the grass at the base of a tree.

Sometimes, he wonders about the other two,
listens for the faint sounds of their breathing
up there on the mantel
alongside the clock and the candlesticks.

And some nights in the quiet house
he wishes he could break the silence with a question,

but he knows the one on his right
would not be able to hear,
and the one to his left,
according to their sacred oath—
the one they all took with one paw raised—
is forbidden forever to speak, even in reply.

Usually you appear at the front door
when you hear my steps on the gravel,
but today the door was closed,
not a wisp of pale smoke from the chimney.

I peered into a window
but there was nothing but a table with a comb,
some yellow flowers in a glass of water
and dark shadows in the corners of the room.

I stood for a while under the big tree
and listened to the wind and the birds,
your wind and your birds,
your dark green woods beyond the clearing.

This is not what it is like to be you,
I realized as a few of your magnificent clouds
flew over the rooftop.
It is just me thinking about being you.

And before I headed back down the hill,
I walked in a circle around your house,
making an invisible line
which you would have to cross before dark.

Somehow, in some bizarre manner, I was able to write this short poem right after a dream I had about a year ago. I just found it on my phone, and I can still remember the sweeping glow of my Blackberry on my nightly face.

People like my music for my poetry
When I give them my poetry,
It’s not enough.
People like my poetry for my words
And when I give them my words
I become lonely;
When I give them me
It is not enough.