The Strongest We'll Ever Be

And speaking of the wind

I say; let it carry you

these things only reveal themselves to you

after you have been stripped away

unburdened of your old stories

the new one's are like beer-gardens in your mouth

we are, this time, only drunk on healing

to follow this trail is to invent a new line home

who has not seen all signs of hope die in their lifetime
and carried on just in case

there were more

waiting for them somewhere

have you not, anyway, been wrung out

and refed by these beautiful storms

you can't know how strong you'll be

until you are

you are
you are
you are

strong enough
for this.
Give or Take

reroute the grout

from bone; go deeper
most days
to not die is spiritual work
manual labor
what you can carry through fire
without once dropping on your way out
is who you are
give or take

it's always harder to be kind

than it is to burn back

we've all known a guy

who couldn't keep it simple
and had to know the kinda damage he could do
before he'd finally had enough

I've had enough

of running from good things
and better days
are these and these

you don't need to break it before you buy it

you can just decide
right and here now
that what you want is to carry it gently out with you
in a way you never could before

sometimes you have to lose it all

before you get here.
Sometimes. Give or take.
The Way We Came

all that we lost

returning to us
somehow / in the dead
of light / this mad laughter
carried on the wind

the man just barely holding on

against a 7-Eleven wall
repeating the word "mom,"
into the night
reminds you
how important it is to care
for a stranger's pain
and why not start now

and so you do
you ask him his name
and a little about his mother
who, come to find out
has been dead for 20 years
"still feels like yesterday," he says
through a wet slosh of hair
and it's all right there

"are you helping or are you hurting?"

someone has painted on the walls all across town,
are you getting this down?

you need to know

that there are so few reasons why
we are here at all
and they start small

and like this thing that will only get worse

if you don't do something about it
like opening up a window
and instead of jumping out
just breathing in
you gotta know sometimes
that just holding on is enough for one day.
For Those too Few Who Remember
After Eric Taylor
September 25, 1949 - March 9, 2020

"if it can happen to you

it can happen to me"
the old troubadour sings
in someone's living room
the light as low as the voice
carrying that song
here to heaven

"you know it's not been too many people

who'd let me into their houses"
thirsty laughter all around
passed like water
and you can hear how all of those miles
rode across Texas
to Wyoming
are packed with the kind of love
only known through loss

and the heat of the story

gives off a kind of dusty halo of grace
you might only ever see once or twice
if you're lucky and lookin'
hard into the heart
for it

the right chord

all night long
run like a train right through us
new orleans charlie, memphis sally
the sad and the lonely kind
river kind, my kind
but it all comes to goodbyes in the end
and he won't be back this way again

but for just a night

that highway sound
remembered by so few
rattles out to the woods
with all its might
digs deep and puts that last sweet note
into the ground
here lies the song
though we always wanted more
just a little bit more.

*Italics from the song Visitors From Indiana by Eric Taylor

The sequence you are looking for is love

let me show you

here
how to hold the sky
when the moon won't dip
low enough to eat
you must rise while cupping
sound to your ear
and it is enough to know
that someone once loved you
when you didn't have enough
love for yourself
or others

it's enough to witness

sparrows dip into the deep blue
there at least 3 things in motion here
a will, a wing and a prayer

come to it like a mountain

forgive yourself the climb
to know, to need, to touch it exactly
other side of this moment

howling, yes, this and this

undone way
you rise into yourself
one stitch at a time

the whole story

is in a single word
like the sound of the ocean
in a single shell
the heart has not been deceived
but relieved by sound
all around, this sound

how love works is this;

that no matter who you are
or what you have done
deserving is not in its vocabulary
so much as the sound of a sound
shhhh, right there -
like a wave in the sky

forgive yourself the climb

walk through
stone like you are water
that no longer has to go around
to arrive

just get here.