in praise of mysteries

sunday nights. i hate them. the day before the doom.

but not tonight. tonight i'm consumed with myself. and i don't feel bad about saying so.

my mind feels full to the brim. deciphering cryptic messages. making future plans that are too big to speak, because if i speak them, they might come true. making meaning of what she doesn't say. weighing my love for this place with a need to put on new glasses.

yes, tonight i'm making plans. well. that is. as many plans as one can make in one's mind.

shift

right now i'm teaching poetry. my house is littered with anthologies that have been loved by me and the people i bought them from. Billy Collins' 180 Poems. Garrison Keillor's Good Poems. they are nearer than friends some nights. especially on nights like this, when my brain is full and my heart feels abandoned. the poems pay the heart attention it needs. stanza. by. stanza.

Edward Hirsch writes:

I shall begin scouring the sky for signs
as if my whole future were constellated upon it.

I will walk home alone with the deep alone,
a disciple of shadows, in praise of mysteries.

***********************

I'm walking. My head is up. My eyes are open. And, little by little, I'm starting to like the mysteries.