in california.
my heart became a drunken runt
on the day i sunk in this shunt
to tap me clean
of all the wonder
and the sorrow i have seen
since i left my home:
my home on the old milk lake
where the darkness does fall so fast
it feels like some kind of mistake
(just like they told you it would; just like the tugleywood).
when i came into my land
i did not understand:
neither dry rot, nor the burn pile
nor the bark-beetle, nor the dry well,
nor the black bear.
but there is another,
who is a little older.
when i broke my bone,
he carried me up from the riverside.
to spend my life
in spitting distance,
of the love that i have known,
i must stay here, in an endless eventide.
and if you come and see me
you will upset the order.
you cannot come and see me,
for i set myself apart.
but when you come and see me, in california,
you cross the border of my heart.
well, i have sown untidy furrows across my soul,
but i am still a coward,
content to see my garden grow
so sweet and full of someone else’s flowers.
but sometimes
i can almost feel the power.
sometimes i am so in love with you.
(like a little clock that trembles
on the edge of the hour,
only ever calling out “cuckoo, cuckoo”)
when i called you,
you, little one in a bad way,
did you love me?
did you spite me?
only time will tell if i can be well,
and rise to meet you rightly.
while, moving across my land,
brandishing themselves like a burning branch,
advance the tallow-colored,
wall-eyed deer, quiet as gondoliers,
while i wait all night, for you, in california,
watching the fox pick off my goldfish
from their sorry golden state.
and i am no longer afraid of anything,
save the life that here awaits.
i don’t belong to anyone.
my heart is heavy as an oil drum.
i don’t want to be alone.
my heart is yellow as an ear of corn,
and i have torn my soul apart from
pulling artlessly with fool commands.
some nights
i just never go to sleep at all,
and i stand,
shaking in the doorway like a sentinel,
all alone,
bracing like the bow upon a ship,
and fully abandoning
any thought of anywhere
but home,
my home.
sometimes i can almost feel the power.
and i do love you.
is it only timing,
that has made it such a dark hour,
only ever chiming out,
“cuckoo, cuckoo”?
my heart, i wear you down, i know
gotta think straight,
keep a clean plate;
keep from wearing down.
if i lose my head
just where am i going to lay it?
(for it has half-ruined me,
to be hanging around,
here, among the daphne,
blooming out the big brown;
i am native to it, but i’m overgrown.
i am choked my roots
on the earth, as rich as roe,
here,
down in california).
