Once upon a time,
 just blobs of cold.
We know better now
 our modern sensibilities understanding
each flake:
a little bit of dust
 through hot and cold
  from such great heights,
a natural growth of
 crystalline nature
 unique through its travels
 often imperfect
 its simple structure
  making it glaringly obvious,
melting on human contact.

I have been only projecting feelings
 upon the wall of my life.
  It is a strange movie.

I cut myself loose,
 turn myself wild.

These raw feelings,
 man need not witness.

These raw feelings,
 I need them for a real life,
  to tread them.
To tread the path;
 to be in the sunlight.

The gentle, arched wob-wob,
 she advances step-step
  up the lake.
There is no one here
 except the mini-Lochnesses
 momentarily periscoping up,
 facing the wind
 as it whips up waves.
Oh, another follows
 step for step in step.
I realize this is Spring.
Briefly, I wonder if the tension
 is only my speculating:
 she will yield without a fight
 or they are already friends
  as well as lovers.
It is Spring and each walk
 step-step up this long lake
 and it would take all day;
 no, never finish, they way
  they walk step-step.
He leans into flight,
 glides purposefully down the lake,
 over the hill, and is gone.
Perhaps she didn’t notice;
 perhaps she felt a mere ripple
  of a flap amid the wind;
 perhaps she was only looking
  one step ahead as she continues
 step-step.
She eventually settles in and
he returns, wings splayed,
cruising to the other end
like he has some business to attend to.

Oh, why slug
 through these miserable lessons
when I could tip–tap with joy? —
or, perhaps
 that’s the lesson.

And God did so heap upon his Gifts unto Adam
and Adam did become so burdened with Abundance,
he sought shade from the light
and did sink his teeth into nothing, of his own creation,
and loved himself as creator, like God,
and staked out a portion of Eden, calling himself exile,
and only gave unto himself of his own hand,
and wove a second skin to cover up, with shame,
that his first was a gift,
and when he thought of creator,
he confused himself with God,
and how did God love his own creation,
calling it good.

Those times, down in the mouth,
 moping around,
the sun,
 unabashed magnificence,
 glory-bound,
 bouquet spread over
  clouds
   and
  water-ways,
transfixes
and, but how,
 with all my shambles,
it shines on
 me.

Despite the horror
— sequestered within —
I feel the sun
 beneath dead skin;
I see light
 beyond scaled lids;
and press and press,
 with primordial wings,
to lose this exoskeleton.

God, you were the one to fear —
 the one cause worth sacrificing for.

What do you mean?
 “It’s all in your hands.”

What are you saying?
 “You wish for my fulfillment.”

For what use, my sacrifices?
 You don’t want me to sacrifice at all.

You’ve ruined all my plans.
 You’ve stolen my thunder.

Oh, and it is so embarrassing
 when you anoint my crown
 and stick the well-prepared
 fattened calf under my nose
 and lord it up with everyone.

You raining sunlight on the just
 and the unjust.

You don’t understand.
You are out of control.

We grow own
 sorrow or joy;
the greatest joy
 is we grow our own.

At wit’s end, wisdom was my only friend.
Difficult, heavy, I clung to it
as it pulled me through the water,
sea waves endlessly crashing into my face.
Now I pick up little pieces and
hide them under my pillow, undeposited.
I dream of the day
when I trade it all in for a ticket out of here —
out from under the city
into the sunlight,
walk into the country
to find the home I never knew:
wisdom light as a smile.