It was that spring
when my heart slowed
I was dizzy.

It rained a lot.
I would be up alone
with coffee
on the porch
and the sun lifting at a slant
would streak the lawn
like Van Gogh with new tubes
of oils slapping on lurid
impasto, I’d say greens but
the miscellany
could be maddening.

We were dropping like flies
my ears rang as if boxed
and the darkness reeled
when I’d get up to pee.

On the porch scalloped color
dappled shadow a lavish
radiance that strafed my eyes.
It struck me all at once
how it may be to go
that I may even sign off without regret
because none of this was for me
all just an inkling of how
profligate beyond appreciation
a suburban morning can be
and will be long after
my slurpy heart slows to a stop.

Some did not go gentle
some lost their heads
or fretted impossible cures
and I imagine I may cry
over leaving this complicated heaven
amidst the sure disintegration of whatever
faculties had been mustered to navigate,
propagate, dawdle, play.

But here with this oddly slowing heart
another option dawns, that a gift can be
discovering that you are done have
outstayed your welcome now
& your blue mama calls you back to nourish
whatever comes next in the dapple
of the stars.

Joey lay down on his bed.
He’d showered, his clothes laid out for work
and I guessed his wow as it all went down
because I would hope the same in my time
but I think now there may be this interim
theater of dazzling color and explosive flavor
of getting walloped on the head with
momentary gaps in the things we ignore
like balance & rhythm & flow.

Ears ringing as I stagger to a chair
take a seat and finger the pulse
sumping at my wrist an indication
of when whatever belonging
I’d imagined fails, when all I really was
tumbles into the warmth of a backyard compost
piled with egg shells, coffee grinds, and friends
I will go, cracked and ground like them,
and by then one can hope that will be okay
as if it mattered when
of course whether there is anyone
awake to see it sunlight
goes splash like milk
on the porch floor and chimes
tinkle tinkle in the breeze
and seeds across the lawn upsprout
their dream of Van Gogh green.