which seeds are your own? You planted them yourself
in a bed of cotton wool and watch the days go by
while roots grow further and stretch until they stop,
when they have found their place.
I never set my roots down in school or at home,
grew them to the toe-ends of black patent
pumps, propelled from then into a well-made madness.
They let me go stale and I have no roots to go back to.
The root of all whatever-
Gold star blisters, stickers, bird names
assigned to school houses in yellow-blue-green-red.
Between the houses the walls went up- 1, 2, 3....
go- without direction, without waiting,
the soles of both my feet will not wait for me
to find joy in the older years to come.
Clean out of the nesting place, I go cuckoo,
other thoughts audible to me, and I want to go back.
Run at the speed of light then faster
so you can make me a time machine. I'll go back
and pick up all the scattered sticks, brush away
weeds, budding with hooks, clinging on
to follow you from nettle gardens.
Dead bees litter the lawn. I see them when
the ascent becomes illuminated.
The belief that only that which can be observed
and measured can be known- positivists agree.
I would be one of them if I didn't feel excited
about the other things that do exist and we can't see
so just don't know about yet. Things yet to conceive of:
I am cutting clean through whatever roots I managed
and I'm another uprooted Daisy.
There are no signposts, just dreams
and those I can follow. I can almost remember
the song that I can almost hear them singing.
Imaginary trumpets, blues bars,
up the sleeve trump cards for safekeeping.
Summer has come and I'm old now,
and in retrospect, I pay myself more respect.
.
Normality is something that is transient
Melancholy and happiness too,
but I'm happy, and it's arbitrariness doesn't make a difference.
