The day has been bleed,
robbing situations of significance,
and draining the joyous recognition from friends' faces.
This idealized greener grass has become sick and yellow,
labored last words advocating the urgency of anywhere-but-here.
The humane shadow of dusk hides their disgrace:
all those rootless, dried-up dreams have predictably blown away.

In an instant the machinery leaps to life--
a spinning, cycling tribal dance of extreme precision.
Fearless steel pistons pumping and compressing,
igniting and scavenging, marveling at their own fortitude
and relentlessly provoking departure.
Gear changes like life changes moving sequentially
up and down, through advances and set-backs
endlessly pursuing that radiant apostle of salvation
which paints the road ahead in a hopeful white ambiance.
Rhythmically building then receding, building then receding,
the orange street lamps bathe vagabonds in unwarranted notoriety.

The relentless engine hums some familiar, lulling hymn.
The street lamps become paparazzi; inquisitorial bulb flashes exposing
glistening tear tracts as they snake and twist down a quivering cheek,
each tear a prophet mapping-out the endless, rambling road beyond.
Gliding on through the infinite night, there is no time, nor location.
In the dark there can be no pilgrim, just an eternal pilgrimage;
forever bisecting that elusive middle-ground between
the yellow grass and the green.

06/13/2008

Posted on 06/14/2008
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