A Life of Wonder

Some artists inspire me to create.

Their work “speaks to me.”

I take what I hear and translate it into poetry.

This work, in particular, spoke.

In honor of the artist and his vision, I wrote this poem.

A Prayer for the Sword

Brave sword, covered in flowers, stand with me now and always.

I am spirit. I am wind. 

I am: 

The sun’s last light on fishermen’s villages 

I am:

A dark net gliding 

on the still river.

I bow to you now

you who I cannot see

you who I have know all my life

You, the nameless one

Did I create you, or did you create me? 

I’ve seen too much to capture: 

Plastic bottles discarded like cut flowers 

Red flowers: blood of my blood 

All brings me back to you.

My soul is not from here: 

It is song, and I am voice

It is warmth, and I am sun.

When all the warriors have died

You appear to me in a dream

Commanding my return

To a new world 

Made by my own hand

-ZB

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In the fall of ’98, Trevor and I decorated pumpkins for Halloween. Mom gave us paint, brushes, and two carving knives. I painted mine blue. That year I dressed as papa smurf, and the pumpkin matched my costume. Trevor painted his a dark red. He made the color by adding purple, and black, until the shade of red was just right. 

I painted my pumpkin with big, clumsy strokes. He was exacting with each stroke turning the pumpkin’s flesh the color of the layer beneath our skin.

“Do you like it? Do you get it?” He asked.

“Yea bro, yea.”  “Let’s do this,” he beckoned.

We grabbed our pumpkins and headed to the freeway overpass. Sometimes, we could see into the cars: laughing families, fighting families, families in costumes, or tired single men driving to nowhere. Watching them calmed me, like watching clouds.

Then terror.

A bone-cracking scream. From some animal place, Trevor screamed. His desperate and euphoric cries entered my ears, my nerve system, and my bones. As the minivan neared the overpass, he released his pumpkin.  The windshield broke. Trevor giggled joyfully. The car slammed into the tree.

“I did that,” he boosted. “I. did. that!” 

I’d like to say I helped that family, but I ran home through the forest I knew too well as fast as I could

. Mom was making Mikie Mac & Cheese. “Want some honey?” she asked. “No, I”m good, I’m good.”  “What happened to you hands?” she asked. I wanted to explain the red away, and I thought of every excuse and possibility: we hit a deer, had bloody nose, or Trevor cut himself…But before I could answer she said, laughing:  “They’re so blue.”

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I don’t know where the sunsets
Maps perplex me
I’d rather hang them than use them

I am constantly disorientated
Seeking directions from hotdog vendors
And women whose headphones protect them
From questions of any kind

When I am urgently lost I remember
Even five-year-olds can find themselves
On children’s maps

Does asking taxi drivers
For landmarks
Make me less of a man?

My request reveals too much:
That I can’t kill a bear
Assemble furniture
Or recite stats from last night’s game

I live in the state of lost
A pleasurable trance
between “you can’t miss it,” and “take a right on Elm.”

The truth? I’d rather keep
Driving, dreaming, running, thinking
Then stop

Twice I didn’t
at 3 I ran in terror 
At 21 I ran in bliss
Naked on the streets of Paris Amsterdam Prague

I awoke at home
Like a parrot that flew away
Finding himself years later back
In a cage left open for him

-ZB 1/1/22

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