in billowy drowse

I was going to quote some lines from Walt Whitman here, skimming his ‘Song of Myself’ earlier. But I drowsed in the fully-extended recliner, lights out, after my Morning Pages, which were rather scattered, with images like an alligator in a pine tree, stuff like that.

It’s Thursday. The week’s flying. I’ve landed on three songs for today’s soundtrack – Kate Bush, The Clash, Beatles – and there in my Pages a while ago it came to me that I was, in fact, that cat doing The Monkey back in my hometown. Where we had a Main Street dancing club called ‘The Upstairs Cellar’, and where (my town) I went fishing a lot with a few different pals, and fell into the river once until some old black guy jumped in to save me.

Walking under a big sky. Staying free. My singing bird. Barbaric yawp, and all. My teacher encouraging me, in times of emptiness, to see not what’s arriving to fill up that space, but, rather, what else may be leaving.