Som en Hemlös Själ

You remember it, it remains at the edge of your awareness, a memory of youthful optimism, there was a time when a song could change your heart, you refused the cynicism of people who knew better. How the fire gets washed out by reality. I think you need to shed it. Everything burns around you, why wouldn't you burn, too. 

It's not too late to start over, to go back to the beginning. Remember who you were, remeber how you knew better. 

You sit in a rocking chair on the back porch at sunset, listen to fireworks pretend everything is the best it's been. The dog is anxious, stares at the sky and wonders if you’ll protect her against the unseen enemy. There’s a metaphor in there and you don’t want to see it. 

Go to sleep, try again tomorrow. It’s not too late 

to start over. 

Gloria

New Hampshire sinks into your frazzled edges, fills voids you didn't know you had. You try impatiently to force a peace, a purpose, but that's not how it works, and you should know it by now. A third season on the road, summering across America, escaping into the outskirts. They offer you an apartment in Brooklyn, everything about it should have you saying yes, but when you drive out of New York along the FDR early one Saturday morning, all the shoulds wash away and you're left with the same inexplicable yearning for Manhattan that pulled you across oceans time and again and you were never sorry. 

I gave you my tired, my poor, I promised to want for nothing if only you'd love me, and I mean it still, how can I mean it still? There's something kind in a love that refuses to abate. 

I have lost so much, New York, but I have yet to lose you. 

So though the road leads north, 
I'll be back when the nights get longer again.