A NOTE TO THE CONFEDERATE OF MY CONSCIOUS WAKING HOURS

MAY 11, 2013

my dear, don’t be misled; i only do this when i’m completely alone:
writing later now in words like haughty vapor castles.

tonight is not for making vows to any future,
there will be no passing words to ghosts of time.
there will be no quiet hope, or cautious plans, or thoughtful waiting.

tonight, we exist for the burgeoning, riotous now: this single, glimmering instant.
tonight, we pluck at apples in the sky, shimmering diamonds, and we eat them.
no saving for later; salvation is now.

now, this gawking moment.
now, this reverberant pulse.

tonight is the face of a mountain for climbing. tonight is the edge of a cliff.
tonight we will walk on the moon of our longing.
tonight, as the sun drips, we’ll

write our stories in the stars, on our lips, beneath the skin of our trembling hands.

we’ll think not of forever (when forever is now, strung eternal);
we’ll fear not for tomorrow at the neck of today.
we’ll twist out of our clothes at the water’s cold rim, and we’ll jump, naked,
splashing.

shuffling coals, we will find there a spark. we will breathe it.

the night is a slate, dear; your feet are the chalk.
come, walk with me.