QUOTES/POEMS
“I don't believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.” —Joseph Campbell
“I don't believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.” —Joseph Campbell
New football
Christmas 1961
shiny as polished furniture
rings around both ends
mysterious and beautiful
In the front yard
throw the best spiral
no wobble, aerodynamic as a jet
fingers clutch the laces
seeking perfection
over and over I throw
We gather
Jimmy, Wayne, Vance, Guy, my little brother Jake
tackle on the grass
two hand touch on the driveway
Vance drills a bullet to me
I catch it, turn
and head upfield
until my little brother
drives his blonde head
into my thigh
Demolished, I go down like a building
crumple sideways into our mailbox
Everyone cheers
hurray for the little brother
underdog triumphs
My pride hurts
more than my shoulder
or charliehorsed thigh
I limp back to the huddle
my face hot
That night in bed
my scratched football
in the crookof my arm
for the first time
I think I might not
make it to the pros
Athlete’s foot again
The fungus eats
into the hinge of my little toe
If I didn’t treat it
would it trench all the way to the bone?
in the men’s locker room
after our shower
you stepped into the black basin
filled with cloudy green disinfectant
and told me to do it too
so that I wouldn’t get athlete’s foot
Me little, you big,
I did the same as you
You handed me a pair of paper sandals
for further protection
then wrapped a towel around your waist
and tucked the top part in
I had already mastered that once-amazing trick
by practicing at home
Clean now and warm
I followed
as you worked your way
through the bodies with muscles and hair
the shouts and the laughter
the voices big as trees
But you went away
then, or a year later,
You left me in the forest of men
wrapped in a towel
standing there with paper shoes on my feet
LEAF-FALL
November:
the sky above
the color of
the road below;
at a light,
cars idle to my left
and to my right,
ninety-eight demons
fly-in, fly-out
I wait--
Into stopped traffic
falls, yellow,
a leaf--it slants
dips, swoops up and
rides high,
slides back down, banks
like a glider in
a spiral, pinwheel-spins,
slips onto an edge
but cutting the air
too steeply, the leaf
to float flat, then
flutters, tumbles
to the street.
we gun our engines
and move on.
right now
is for my joy
to have lasted
five or ten more
seconds.
But that’s another
way of saying
thank you, which
is what I really mean.
