There are truths and there are Truths. My world seems like a vice-like thing, so good at keeping me in tight situations, with no air in my lungs, nowhere to go, no time to think, barely room to react, really, really, to this Truth. I own no Gold objects, nothing that can be melted down when the market crashes, all I have are old photographs and tattoos, over-weight cats and bad breath. These things will not get me far in the world to come. I saw myself through my nephew's eyes, and what I saw were truths, my age, the cities that I have lived in, the style of clothes that to him are so un-cool ("You really like to wear tight pants, don't you Uncle Steven.....")
My heaven will have Haagen Daz trees in full bloom. My heaven will host vast celebrations spanning centuries and cultures not known. My heaven, holding me, has no morning, has no night, but limitless dusks and dawns, the light is always gold, always gold, and covers me from my east to my west. There are no rear-view mirrors, no reasons to look behind, and no half-forgotten dreams, like pebbles in shoes as you walk the dusk/dawn streets. No ghost-like memories, no haunted broken promises to hide beneath your sleeve. And when you do turn your back, it's always somehow forward, always dusk, always dawn.
This heaven has no eulogy. There are no keys because there are no locks and no crushed hearts beneath thrift store lapels. Bluebottles, jays and sparrows take their rest in your hair and it never matters whether you've combed it or woken in a mess of tangles and curls. Every night is St. Valentine's Day and midsummer's eve, and everybody remembers to write. And if you somehow find yourself in a position to fight, to make fists and use them, remember this.....are you the sky or are you the bird?
There are children out in the yard singing and it sounds German and it sounds like smiling. It sounds amazing. It sounds like Saturday morning cartoons, when your heart could pound because your favorite robot was in danger....or when you realize even your favorite super hero has his faults, actual faults and even he knows fear, even he looks for his limitless dusks and dawns, that place where the light is always gold, always gold, and covers him from his east to his west. I am talking to myself again.
Take me home, where you are, where I have a house near naked rivers and vast green forests. The smell of food cooking from upstairs, your voice laughing to some friend on the phone....where the stars are sneaking through the blue sky like they just can't wait for night. Our neighbor is whistling as she tends her garden, the clock on the wall shakes out time.....and suddenly I no longer feel like a shipwreck but an island. And I am its King and you are my Queen. The sky is red and the day is on fire and the willow trees brush against a wagon of rain while the children leave to go dancing, leave to live their lives. And then its winter, and then its spring and then its the Fourth of July and the sky is on fire again and then its Halloween and ghosts steal our candy and paper our trees and then everything is turning blue. And then, suddenly, thick blankets and hot coffee in the morning. Snow, sleet and ice and I swear to god by Christmas time there will be someone else to hold you.
When I say goodbye, I'll say goodbye to that darkened knoll under the walnut tree and the sound of morning. I'll say goodbye, finally, to that last dusk and that last dawn....and I'll wish someone would put me on a train to someplace far away. I'll never kiss those lips again or break your heart and when I say goodbye, I'll say goodbye to you, my Truths and to you, my truths and to you, your arms.....
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