Connectings

Snuggle time in the feathery down. The fluff. Where the golden warmth lives through wet winter blackness. Art Pepper on the radio. Just enough tone so’s to hear something, but not distraction. As I curl up under the blankets – the quilts – the comforter, blessed I know beyond all get out, thankful that I even have lucky stars, never mind they twinkle and sparkle all about me. Do their high beams travel longer than I did commuting to the group home from Lowell to Quincy? Where it was always blessed be the children. I’d say so, and that was long ago and a continent wide away and before Pepper and that jazz and the mellow inclinations and, here’s the real deal, before Lord Dedith and the imperative to drop all in on the prayer thing. Now I lay me down to sleep, yeah, right here in the toasty bed and as I curl I become chrysalis, I become emerging regal creature ready to enter the all-in free zone where I drop to my knees up against the meditation chair, mixing metaphors and historical allegiances to the almighty – oh Great Powhaton, oh Lord Dedith, oh Athena, einai Gautama, and now I twirl about Sophia – that there is some righteous knowledge, homeboy,

And it has flown down to me and here is where I get it, here is where I see, new eyes yet again – how many is a boy gifted all his years? – and like Miss Joanie Blue said when folk said it all, it is time to get back to the garden, and not talking the Eden place, oh no Jones, this is the garden out in the yard, right outside in the light of glittering day, some with some squash, some with just-now-blooming iris, wild blackberry bushes abound and out there under the rain-abetted moss is the Buddha – hey there Siddhartha, we know your flowers  and your bees and I get to my knees and beg now to be a better beggar, I ask powerfully for skills for asking, I seriously seek help to be a seeker, and – listen – the soft saxophone tunes drift here and about and nobody’s in a hurry and once upon there was a time I sang in the Christmas choir and sure it was all about the girls in their funky red robes but glory, glory glory and can I give an amen and those were at childhood’s end and now, pretty much roaring right down the blue blue turnpike of new experience the word arrives, and no jive, hit it Brah, get down on the ground, down on those oh so weary-yeared knees –  which no warranty anywhere I’ve seen, though the whole package is, dig this, I’m still here – thank you my number one with a bullet every dawn –

And the trick now is to learn the skills, the ask with every cell of my DNA and the belief , no getting on without that, I am a chrysalis, I fly through my dreams lifted on the breeze of higher powers, up there way above me, and I struggle like I do and I aid others like I do and even in the land of fast-asleep world I feel the little light, this one of mine, and it’s all Saint Francis, dig – where there are shadows – and I get to play the Bodhi man too, I bring the word in all directions and everybody’s heard that the bird is the word and I’m flying high and who’s to say just exactly who that flying creature yonder exactly is, we all about camouflage Holmes when it comes to deity time, and I pray for words that rhyme and verses that bless and to unravel the mess of ancient cerebellum and you know, Joe, I haven’t said it clear but the presence of something here for me is near and, oh dear, all I have is these words and any old trance I can dance with from this chair, these keys kind of the bees’ knees and sugar and spice and I chase the fragrance of the snow-white rhodies and lordy, lordy – literally –

I don’t know if it is home I’m coming to, but it sure will be somewhere else. The journey, once again, just get in the car and head off to the new, and the new could be ancient and all I want is a chance to curl up in that welcoming bed, safe and snug here in the alleyway to visual delights where I am welcomed home pretty much every night. And, yeah Lord Dedith, you sure get that right.