The Starlight Still Within Us
What did we do to end up here amongst all this perishing?
Have you heard what the violin says to the cello in a minor key?
We are squirrels wintering—forgetting where we hid our chances of surviving the cold.
We are cheering for our teams,
forgetting the cookies grandma left on the counter with such intention that we should really be phoning her in a long forgotten memory.
And if I could call the dead,
I’d ask for a phone from 1963.
I’d ask to speak to my four year old father.
That’s an age when he wouldn’t forget that this happened—
A call for Mark?
that’s enough to make a 4 year-old in the 1960s go beserk.
And once a kid goes wild, they never go back.
Who is it? Why it’s your son, from the future, calling on an “iPhone.” In 1963 there’d be a vast enough space between him and his adulthood that he’d never be so sure of what that memory is and raise me into an eternal question—was it really I who called? Is this reality really this adrift in a sea of unsolvable mysteries?
If we can raise children, why not the dead? Did you hear what the church is doing? Turning their graveyard into a waterpark. Water may mold, and we are molded from wet clay and then set to dry in the sun so that we can be a container that confines the cosmos into a little pot that you can use as a vase if you like.
Be the only one anyone knows who tells everyone, “I bet you look nice in your underwear.” No, tell them, I’m not flirting. Quite the contrary. I’m not from this world you see— I’m just here for all the free oxygen.
You heard it here folks, misery is our sister and sorrow our friend. A sea-bound breeze once told me this world was an oyster’s Aroma wofting over a rusted dock on the shore of this way or that. The rust proves this kind of shit’s been going on for a long ass time.
They say rusted toasters burn bread. But I have had toasters who followed me around for years without making a single breakfast, their murky aluminum carrying crumbs from long lost lifetimes I wasn’t invited to.
Toast that is too toasted becomes burned bread. And that’s all you need to convince a dog to be your best friend.
Oh my friends I have known the aftermaths and the forthoughts that swore they could see ahead. I have seen the sincerest smiles from faces that should have frowned. One of those is mine.
Please, don’t come in with a new belief system, we just cleaned the carpets. I’m still trying to figure out how to stand straight in the storms without being struck. Just teach me how to be kind. Teach me how to be together with the world. Show me how to hold her hand like cradling a baby bird with a broken wing—if it heals, she will fly. This naked broken thing may just grow to become a beacon in the clouds. The animals have learned to soar above it all, they know how to leave the trifles littering the ground behind, peering down on it all. What but a lot more loving would we be if we could see everything? The feeling of feeling every pinprick being pushed into being. Do you still want to know what it’s like—to be God?
How can we be kinder? How can we care more? How can we we convince ourselves to start looking out for everyone? How can we carry each other across the canyons we find between us?
Love once asked patience what she was waiting for.
Patience smiled. “You,” she said.
We are all talking to the whole world but stuck in a giant web. If we can all put on masks together we can take them off one by one and continue unmasking ourselves until all that’s left is a smile. Please unmask yourself before unmasking others. We can unwrap each day like a worn out belief system and find the hilarity below it all. Life, you’re hilarious – all your sounds and colors and gags — you’re a gambler in ten gallon Stetson with polka dot pants who goes all in without ever having been dealt cards. But I see you. I think I know what you’re going for.
If we can laugh about anything wear your girating grin for God, hell, wear it in heaven—show it to the burned pasta and destroyed temples and broken artwork.
The heartwork is in the hearing. The hearing is in the listening. The listening is in the legend that once upon a time a rocket ship made of words brought us to life and from pathos came ethos and egos and hard work and scattering and scavenging the ditches for ideas that will teach us how to touch the starlight that’s still left in us on this journey back home where it feels like our parents have locked us in a room full of brownies and scorpions. It’s scary and delicious — scarring and delightful — terrifying and terrific — if we get out of here alive we are going to be so full of festive feelings that the future will have to wait. If you ever hear from the future again, tell him we’d like our money back.
Tell him we’re a little busy caravanning through the cosmos to talk to someone we only met once. Tell him not to come around no more. Tell him we’re not interested in anything we can’t hold and touch and cherish. Tell him we made a bet with destiny.
Tell him we’re sure we’ll win.
