bright eyes / poison oak

Poison oak, some boyhood bravery
When the telephone was a tin can on a string
And I fell asleep with you still talking to me
You said you weren't afraid to die
In polaroids you were dressed in women's clothes
Were you made ashamed, why'd you lock them in a drawer?
Well, I don't think that I ever loved you more

Than when you turned away, when you slammed the door
When you stole the car and drove towards Mexico
And you wrote bad checks just to fill your arm
I was young enough, I still believed in war

Well let the poets cry themselves to sleep
And all their tearful words will turn back into steam

But me, I'm a single cell on the serpent's tongue
There's a muddy field where a garden was
And I'm glad you got away but I'm still stuck out here
My clothes are soaking wet from your brother's tears

And I never thought this life was possible
You're the yellow bird that I've been waiting for

The end of paralysis, I was a statuette
Now I'm drunk as hell on a piano bench
And when I press the keys it all gets reversed
(The sound of loneliness makes me happier)

Fog covered sunrise this morning
evergreens and firs growing silently out of the white
we, dressed in down vests, thick socks, boots
strapped canvas bags to our shoulders,
huddled around trees picking Bartlett pears
red and green, we picked every one, climbing the hard ladders,
pouring the bounty into wooden, spidery crates.

My Dad and I walked through the field last night,
the now autumnally greenish-grey field,
counting pine saplings.
The dead and the survivors (only 55 didn't make it this year)
which leaves 200 to become strong Ponderosas--
the best numbers we've ever had!

My Dad, solemn and focused, counts carefully
(for him, tree-planting is no small responsibility),
credits the July thunderstorms, the blessed rain this weekend,
weather that redeemed an unnaturally hot and dry June.

The puppy, its big paws and young face, is growing so fast
soon it will be faithful and obedient
(oh, how I long for a dog)

I have studied so many sunrises and sunsets this summer,
have stood every day under a changing sky
have faced, despite sweet skateboarding and a boy I am quite taken by,
no small amount of loneliness.

But oh, I'm not finished finding stories on windy beaches yet!
My ear is to the ground [the song is in the soil]

i'm just trying to be a human being

The Glass House, 15 April 2008



Everyone I see I think I've known before
From the opera house to the grocery store
My love for them I cannot ignore
Like a human voice in a quiet morgue

But I don't want to wear no dead man's suit
I don't want to wait until the moon turns blue
I don't want to dream if it won't come true--
If there's something in me, well, I guess it's in you

[Photo thanks to PennLive.com]