I found the wise old man cross legged
on the tip of the mountain peak.
I said, “I’ve walked a thousand miles.”
He said, ” You are what you seek.”
So I uncrossed my legs, rose from the peak
and tossed my eyes to the valley.
They rolled through town and found me deep
asleep down a dark alley.
By the light of a shining star
By the dark of a dimlit bar
I’m an exploding pen.
I might not make it this way again.
Sun and moon, day and night,
heaven and hell, wrong and right.
For all I know, for all I’ve seen,
there must be two of me.
One to rise. One to be ashes.
One to fall and one to fly.
One that the crumbling sky catches
and one to be free by and by.
“You can’t make what you already made.”
I say when they say I might make it.
I steal a poem. I borrow shade.
When a chance floats by, I take it.
Fellow inmates of this round world,
these bodies, these thoughts in our head.
Save all the reasons you’ll pray nevermore.
Tell me all about it when I’m dead.