Finally your home

Half Moon Bay

Finally your home has changed
it has been coming with a limp
a long conveyance of moving soil
it was an immense creature with no eyes
trucking like a glacial till across the land
blanketed and abandoned in blossoming white
it came like the erosion of the beach heads
without violence but impossible to relent
there was a place then that is now
the meadow in your first letters
you think about this transition
it comes to you in small creatures
when you are standing in the fields
and your feet are wet because the fields are low
and the air is washed, the light is mute
the season is turning in slow strains
and the fields have been swept up into knots
combed by wind and stacked in rain
and your own hair is now long
and your eyes are now stones
you find it hard to think about where you will die
or the day of your birth with its tremors
its cracking ice, its cold high clouds
the long moment of your initiating breath
it came to you, and it was by will, your own will
that you came to us fighting
you actually gasped
in the swale you find a dog's bones
there are flowers in its eyes
leaves between the ribs, and you find a crow's wing
but the grasses are fluttering, the weeds rattle
how do you say all of this
that you are immersed among the birds?

Goodbye Franklin

Observational notes from a town visit

The Confederate Army memorial is surrounded by half empty buildings from a dozen decades ago and others selling vintage things, family department stores as they once were, and the gap along Main is now a pocket garden, Antebellum dresses are next door in the window, paint scrapings and lace. Up the hill are a few tired houses, a curving driveway going towards nothing in particular out of view next to a pedestrian crossing sign and another which demarks BUS441. I go down now, pass the berm with its trees and flowing plants, right at the light, and cross the street. Here is the VFW hall, a windowless cat store with a fluttering flag of airbrushed kitties outside making faint noise in its shadow; it blocks the sidewalk at head height. The ubiquitous family appliance store, Ingles, hot parking lots, occasionally a tree that is old and large—its canopies sweep up the wind—are all scenes from the periphery of this busted sidewalk. There are odd corners where nothing stands but mowed grass and some perennials. A realtor’s hut with a shiny Hummer and sunflowers outside. The backs of the buildings on Main along the diverted and split one-way highway. Everybody here has a sign in the window, some gentlemen are setting out antiques. Where do these power lines go besides into the canopy? And why are there streetlights here? It is nice outside; warm with no humidity. Drafting services, radio towers, police parking lot, Latino men walking down the highway. That lazy sound of cars. Bright teals and reds and yellow beiges. Shiny cars parked along shady trees, in the center of a town that doesn’t seem to bother. Everywhere is a nowhere. For Rent, For Sale, Now Open. Air conditioners and one-way delivery drives. Inexpensive clothing; billboards. Well drilling, Ruby City. Everything in need of a trim, a touch-up, rebuilding, alignment. Some things are freshly painted. Odd background bird calls. The Sapphire Inn down the hill in the distance. Music is coming from the cars and leaves are falling.

Pot Diet

I like brothy soup

To save money and kill time, which I have too much of, I've started eating from a pot. I am a soup man; most of my life, I have been a soup man. The pot diet involves a spoon, a bowl, and a pot. In the pot I make soup by combining anything that is available in my cupboard and fridge. Lately, this has been clams and onions and spinach and milk with some other things also. Mostly, it's delicious. Spending two hours a night making a brothy soup (broth and I are in love. We are lovers) is probably the best way I could spend my time in boring Vail. Colorado, though, isn't so bad.

February 26

A poem

This vast earth carries the burden
of countless scabs buried in its skin.
Here I am in a premature spring
scraping them from the surface
in gravel fields and flowerbeds
with a disposition for fracturing.
I put my ear to the till
left wondering, what world is this
where magma and tempering water
spring forth from its crust?

Dopamine

Personality profile

Michelle had me take a personality type test at chemistry.com.

The results are below. Text in blue is pretty much true. Text in green is circumstantial. Text in red is pretty much not true:


EXPLORER/Director

ABOUT YOUR PERSONALITY TYPE

You are very curious and you love adventure, either or both intellectual and physical. So when you get interested in something, you can become extremely focused on it, sometimes to the exclusion of all around you. You pursue your interests thoroughly, too, often with originality and exactitude.

You are adaptable, competitive and a problem-solver, as well as skeptical, tough minded and determined. Because you have a lot of energy and tend to be enthusiastic about your theories and projects, you can be very persuasive. You are eager to make an impact on those around you, too, as well as in the wider world.

You are irreverent and highly independent. So you can be oblivious to authority figures, as well as to rules, schedules and social customs. And although you enjoy people and can be charming and humorous, you are not interested in routine social engagements or anyone whom you regard as boring. Instead, you seek stimulating and focused conversations; and you are comfortable being by yourself, pursuing your own many interests.

Of all twelve (primary/secondary) types, you are also the most sexual-because both dopamine and testosterone stimulate the sex drive.

IN LOVE AND RELATIONSHIPS

As an Explorer, you look out not in; you are foremost interested in the world around you. So you are attracted to a mate who is also intellectually and physically adventurous and interested in dissecting this complex, tangible universe. You particularly like imaginative and theoretical people, a "mind mate." And you like a partner who is sexual, because you regard sex as an important aspect of a relationship. You have nerves of steel and thrive on the edge. You are also decisive and direct. So you are unconsciously drawn to those who can balance out your highly independent and tough-minded spirit--those who are novelty seeking, yet compassionate, verbal, intuitive, trusting, flexible and emotionally expressive.

RELATING TO OTHERS

You like to have good conversations on important topics; so people tend to admire you for your knowledge and innovativeness. You shy away from emotional or self-revealing conversations, however; introspection leaves you cold. Instead, you derive intimacy from doing things with friends or a partner. So you make an exciting, although at times aloof, companion.

THINGS TO BE AWARE OF

* You can be highly emotionally contained, even pretending that you are fine when you are in deep psychological or physical pain.
* You become impatient with cautious people or wordy conversations.
* You can become so wrapped up in your own interests that you spend too little time with your partner.

SPARK FACTOR

You tend to naturally gravitate to EXPLORER/negotiators.