thoughts like gauche on vellum

 

a seven year pilgrimage, so to speak, through life. when rushing madly out the door with the house on fire and no time to grab your hat. where have we gone. that nobody can recognize us anymore? like the pantomime who washes off his make up, wash the masks away and watch them wash down the drain

those faces….not the hat on the way out the door; but instead, there, that one is the first choice because it was there at the time

Was there at the time 

it wasn’t the first idea one might have chosen, just what the panic grabbed because it was the only shield to hide stark nakedness

stark naked ….i have wandered so long—haven’t we, el?stark naked with just our wits, and there we grabbed it

One in Talent and Ashland, one in Oak Park, one in Hyde Park, the fbi years, the north country face but none —none I’ve known 

am not afraid of seeing her there —discarded like old jeans ….but I don’t think I know her anymore ….like the Royal Oak cemetery we’d walk by; the real ghosts we saw and knew ….like the sketch I did with gauche on vellum 

I fear I’ll see her there —see-through on the wind like a kite, hair like dried maple leaves that crinkle like paper 

No, indeed, let us pay respect. Let us take a moment and stand upon that corner facing the liquor store and do not turn a cold shoulder. Stand and greet her. Salute her. And bow. And see even the unkind lines upon her face and adore them and then stand before that golden mirror and put her back on like a priestess robe, not as cover nor as rewind but as that pair of discarded jeans that were made to last, that was too hastily shunned for passé, the classic is reliable and holds its shape better

the quandary of but ? —does it fit? —is that me?; was that me?when so many lately have been throwing what and who we are to them. 

The ghosts by the cemetery always were the talk and, so— that one we left there? if we met her what would we say….i think she’d want to come along with us—maybe i guess we left her there too. she couldn’t have taken the journey. so where do we take her instead?