Poem: 2013.12.11 ZZ walking

In step
We walked
Talked
talentedly about the world

The city installed
new lights
That fragmented the shadows.
Alone they gave me pause
in the night,
how suddenly something stable
had come undone

And upon returning home
to your letter
I found the rest of world
too had unwound

A noticeable difference
in our gaits multiplied by years
had walked us over a chasm.
You and an unconceived Child
to one side and I to the other

I knew you had stopped
And only with the scare
of nausea in your steel stomach
And the doctor's denial
did that crack in the sand
vacate the space between us
to where we could not stand side by side

In step
We shall walk
Talk
apart

USA; now like visiting a 3rd world country

I've spent many of extra nights and incalculable hours not getting somewhere due to political problems in others countries and always considered these situations symptoms of places that still have large political instability. This past week a visit from a German friend made me apply this same diagnosis to the US. Nancy wanted to go to Lassen, but we were unable to plan it because of the federal shutdown, so we agreed to go to Tahoe as we could still have some time in the mountains, but another political hiccup interfered as BART went on strike Friday. Nancy had flown into SFO, so what should have been about an hour or so worth of transportation to get to the east bay turned out to be closer to 3 hours. As a country we need to stop being so greedy and think about how tantrums effect other people. Some how in the last twenty years the word compromise seems to have escaped the national lexicon. I'd like to see it come back.

At least the mountains still know how to compromise with the changing weather

Poem: ZZ departing

The burden upon you

With the weight of your parents expectations

Becomes that of finite lite

in your flight

For I remember a fortnight

Where upon the bed you turned many a times away and inward

Till turning turned upon itself

And in the sheets, a thing that gave me retreat.

A blackhole covered in white linen

So strong that even your voice could not escape.

Under the sun

I know now never to stay for a fight

Because in your search for one

I was undone

The razor in hand that runs through your life

Divides the world such that

There is no picture to hang on the wall

To stand back from and say

"Ah there it is, I'm sure, it is all"

But in the mountains upon

The ridge of our relations

A view of all directions

But a trail didn't not emerge

The wind carries no weight yet knows its path

And

Absence becomes the heaviest thing of all