The Same Way

The Same Way

 ^(“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” Matthew 6:26)

I judged so hard I cannot see what the judging meant to me.

I dug so deep the stones slept below the shoveled repeats.
I ran so fast the artificial track burned my barefoot heels and
artificial grass. Run again, to hide from the looks that guided
the criticism back at me. Running still, to discover the hopeful dollar
because I knocked one hour longer than all the rest.

I’m feeling the same way all over again.

I have not been fed like a pet left alone with a bowl and water,
like a parrot talking to the air or a
cat reigning from the sunlit chair.
All the desires, nearly most, and some of the best,
were coffee houses on open mike Fridays,
were student-published staple-bound copies that
made the rounds from temporary buildings on the edge of campus
to dots on a page of the Milton press.

I’ve never liked sandwiches; bologna or tuna; but when a sunny friend
asked would I stay for lunch,
I ate like a seaside café had plated the catch of the day.

I’m tasting the same way all over again.

I thought he sang better, (no, I knew it true) but we sang together
the light and the blue, the crystal and the few lyrics we pieced
from our own short minds and limited time. A single night recording,
four track Teac tape, sitting on my brother’s bed; we said this
was our best, an acoustic set. Two guitars, a recorder, a trumpet
and a flute. We sang of the Lamb of God, the one slain before
earth’s foundation was laid.

I’m searching the same sound all over again.

Yet pain is still the song the brings shadows unbidden;
sleepless, my thoughts are hidden behind grammatical corrections
and dramatic protests to my Autumn. Well-fed, sleep is
the only option what leaves my mind simply rested.