Poem

KEEPING THEM ALIVE

Rain draws the land grey,
and where fir trees
had once shone their green armor,
there now exists
only a mourning horizon's watercolor smears
brushed against a soaked landscape.
The black that came with midnight
is hiding from the grey that wrestled it
into cracks between water that hushes
in every direction but upward.
I'm James Dean on a trip,
stepping through small rivers
that rush against my feet,
two round suede rocks
plunge their moss
and emerge in the center of colliding streams.

I'm James Dean walking alone
with my head cocked
and my hands in the pockets of jeans.
My spectacles washing down my face
as I squint and wring water from my eyes.
The land is clouded from reality
and my mind wanders
towards pictures forming beyond the grey;
Pictures of friends from nine and six
and fourteen.
I miss them all
and wonder where they are now,
keeping me alive, I hope.
I keep them alive in old footage
while waiting for busses.
I see them smile in silent footage
when I read forgotten letters.
They hang from painted treehouses in crackling footage
when I walk alone.
I keep them alive in old footage
where they are the same age
as when I last saw them.

Time hammers against life.
It pulls and pushes and doesn't wait
for you to take everything along.
It's a train, or a subway car
and if you're late, it drags you
under the city,
and you're never completely in or out,
because whichever you choose,
you've got your shirtsleeve caught in the door.
Five times five years,
losing my grip on days
that overflow,
carelessly shoved into my red handbag
that hangs tattered, closed in the door
outside of the subway car
while we speed westward.
Here comes 30th street
and it feels like we just left downtown.
It must have happened during my nap:
everyone stayed a few stops back
seeing my face without a name.
I am somewhere in the distance of their minds
as reels conjure me back,
in remembrance of friends from four, nine
and seventeen.
They wonder who I am and where I exist
(if I exist).
I live in their rain and forgotten letters.
They live in my handbag, my footage
and the tips of my fingers
and when I don't know any better,
I look for those days to return,
until lines of gray reemerge across my vision
washing away tree houses,
and reality precipitates something
that runs across my shoes.