Scrolling through old posts in my 'offline journal' I came across this.

One more attempt to sort-or-understand it all.

2/11/12

There was a magazine next to the crapper, of course.

So 

Sometimes after wine, maybe a little too much wine

you will read something. And what had previously escaped your

razor sharp intellect®

is now blazingly, blindingly clear.

The former Poet Laureate whose book on poetry

you’ve labored over

has a poem published in a magazine (which you have fortunately stored next to the crapper)

and every word - instead of being rectangular and indigestible

now actually describes an individual leaf on this 

tree

of life.

The poem - it’s about mules and old sayings and getting kicked and breathing. Indeed, what else is there?

This too-much-wine evening also happens to be 

the same day as your visit to a church

for a funeral of the mother of a friend.

This church - as it happens - is the same church which for at least a decade in your life was the only reason that you tied shoes onto your feet on one morning each week from mid-June to the end of August.

This church from your past, this moment in your present, 

your questions about the hereafter

all condensing, crystalizing right here in this too-much-wine evening.

So today I tied presentable shoes to my feet, tied a tie around the collar of 

a presentable shirt and went to the old church and listened to the priest speak.

It’s a moment. 

There in the church - the flood of thoughts - how many funerals in this country each day?  How many people utter words meant to sum something up? 

This - today - is about the moment when whatever it is 

that the universe has - or is - separates itself (it would seem) from 

a speck - a prism - that focussed the energy of the universe into an identifiable form for eighty-odd years. 

So

All of these beams align today - shoes, energy, wine, poetry - and I feel as though I flail and flop like a throw rug in the dryer. 

A throw rug walked on by saints and soaked in spilled wine.

Religion. Who’s yer daddy? Jesus? Buddha? Mo-freakin’-hammed?

Raised with Latin phrases 

echoing through my brain,

today  I realized that what we all want - no matter whose picture is hanging on the wall - 

is just something that we can all put our hands on at the same time

and look each other in the eye

and say, “Yes - this is something we agree on”.

The darkness is so vast . . . . 

To focus.

And then there’s this...

now that you’re a grown-up you know about all the things that get in the way - the things that take you away

away from the home and the faces

but when you were a pup, you knew nothing of that

your Dad was there or he wasn’t - and when he was there

he was smiling or he wasn’t - you were a pup; you didn’t know

but when he smiled and tickled you and called you by the nickname he had for you

that was all you needed

Steady, my hand - hold the lens still.

All this way to come - to be here and focus.

Hold the lens still.

There’s this pile of wood, there’s all these parts

these things you’ve picked up along the way

all of it here with you now

yours to make something out of

to show that you’ve paid attention

(to show?) that you know if an edge should be soft or sharp

if a word should be warm or cold