Why I Don’t Need Adrenaline-Rush Recreational Activities

Because despite my twin intentions of awe
and joy, dew-damp feet and warm manure
between my toes, I can’t get the cows to go
where they need to go. I push but don’t, push
but don’t, and now I pull because the kitchen
door’s stuck and somebody’s pounding
and wants badly to get in. A pretty woman
taps my shoulder and hands me a drink. She tells me
we need to talk and something about her bracelets
makes me believe her. Because I’m waiting
in airport security and my team’s already on the plane
but I forgot our money in the car. Outside
I meet an old friend whose name I should
but don’t remember. The sun’s in my eyes
and he asks about my dead parents
just as I get a question-mark text from somebody
on the plane. I don’t know who or how
to answer. Which rock to push and which
to sit on. And always with a little bit of the feeling
that maybe I’m talking too much. Certainly at the end
of the party, when my books come off the shelf. Nobody’s
read them and everyone asks questions
I can’t answer without making things up.
Kind of kills the party and a little something
inside me. But maybe the party’s ending anyway
because the soccer game’s over and I run
onto the field. My wife is being interviewed
by an African man in Spanish. She says something wrong
but clever and funny and we laugh. The grass is green
in that pretty way grass is green under lights.
She finishes and walks away. I’m calling
to get her to slow but the interviewer
catches my sleeve. I surprise myself at how
I can tell amusing stories in Spanish while searching
the crowd and trying to remember why.
I tell myself I’m okay. I tell myself
nobody knows why. I’m breathing in the same air
I’m talking out. In and out. I tell myself
for the time being nothing visible
will kill me. Because I’m hunkered behind a log
fingering my few remaining bullets while armed
men with chestnut boots and happy eyes
yip and weave around pink budding oaks.
Because I’m hot with summer and cold
under snow. Because the forest is endless
under a bright smear of stars. Because the moon’s
grown heavy and can’t last. Because all night long
it does.

Luna

Down the gravel drive, the porch light a golden
pin on the black valley swirling with what I
was trying to say as we slammed the car doors,
how I could never trust the answers and people
who gave them. Spring, like us, was noisy with hope
and smothered with growth we hadn’t a clue what
to do with. How could we know how long the past
would last? We might have lay on the grass, quiet
beyond imagined children or the prematurely
dead, felt the rain sublime the ground
beneath us, or locked ourselves inside and made
the scratchy, squeaky sounds of mice. Instead
you pointed at the broken yellow door
and the moth flat against the screen and pale
green, the size of a bird or a painted hand
left by a moon man. We paused and breathed, and stopped
our incessant talking. All philosophy grows
from suffering what to make of this beauty
with no more than a week to live. Was she waiting
for her mate to fly into that fierce wind?
Or maybe the moth was a he and he was staying
for her. Nothing to lose but slippery convictions,
I stood still. Everything
I’ve tried to say since, I’ve tried to say
from there.